MREInfo.com

This may have been covered before, not sure, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of any surplus/survival stores in the U.S. which sell UK, German, or other countries rations besides American MREs. I've been wanting to try some of the stuff I see in the forums here but I'm not sure where to get them besides from overseas and the cost involved to ship it. Thanks for any info.

rationtin440,

I tell ya that has been a real tough question for most of us. There used to be a time here in the Pacific Northwest you could find a lot of Canadian IMPs' but not anymore. I think your best bet would be to scour over ebay and the other ebay european sites. I know the cost involved might be much but that is the only place I have seen other countries rations.

...and actually there may be another problem involved because some things (as food) are not allowed into the USA. I sent once a parcel to rebraunjr and it was stopped at customs. They checked the contents and they let it go through (we were lucky that time). Another time I sent a parcel to Australia and it was worse. The parcel was stopped at customs, they checked the contents and decided the parcel couldn`t go through and they threw away the contents.

Take care people and happy new year.

Luis0449

Thanks for responses guys! My 'puter has been wigging out lately so this is my first chance to reply. luis you're right about customs, plus the gov't here is keeping an eye on folks who are buying rations lately. As for your reply Treesuit, there were a few surplus stores here in my neck of the woods that sold British and French rations in the late 1980s, but that was before I got interested, and now they have no source for them.

I've gotten a few of my foreign rations from folks in the US (RCIRs from PA, PR1Ms from CO) but the rest I've purchased internationally (Spanish, Polish, Lithuanian, Canadian, South Korean, Chinese). So far every single item marked camping supplies has made it through untouched, but every single item NOT marked as camping supplies has been stopped and at least inspected. I've lost about $100 worth of rations due to customs seizure, and you'll always get a letter explaining what they took and why. Unfortunately unless you're a large company and can afford the paperwork it's just plain illegal to import meat or dairy into the US.

Those laws were intended for large scale importers and are there to prevent the public's exposure to tainted foreign goods. As the FDA isn't directly involved in the rules regarding production and transportation it can't assume the food is safe and thus the ban. I really wish customs agents could recognize that purpose and just let our rations go through without all the extra scrutiny but for now I'd say the safest bet is to keep shipments small (a few pounds total) and always always mark items as Camping Supplies or something similar in order to make it clear that there's no commercial intent for the items.

Price-wise, because most of my int'l rats are from overseas the price per item has been pretty high. I can only afford to snag int'l items once in a blue moon

rationtin440,

I'll go back to my original post: scour Ebay and the Ebay.eu sites.