British Army ration pack menu list: all 10 menus, calories and shelf life

Written by James Frost, founder of Flaming Phoenix. Updated October 2026.

A British Army 24-hour ration pack is one soldier's food for a day, around 4,000 calories, packed to one of 10 numbered General Purpose menus, with vegetarian, halal, kosher, Sikh/Hindu, enhanced and cold-climate versions. Menu 1, for example, holds pork sausage and beans, meatballs and pasta, pindi chana aloo and a chocolate brownie.

The menu list below comes from the Ministry of Defence's own Freedom of Information response of April 2022, the most recent full list from the MOD that we could find; the calorie figure is from Forces News in May 2025.

What is on the British Army ration pack menu list?

The General Purpose 24-hour pack comes in 10 menus, each with a breakfast, two main meals and a pudding, plus snacks and drinks. These are the meals listed for each menu in the MOD's April 2022 list:

• Menu 1: pork sausage and beans in tomato sauce; meatballs and pasta (beef); pindi chana aloo; chocolate brownie.
• Menu 2: chicken sausages and beans; rajma masala with cooked rice; chilli con carne (beef); cinnamon cake.
• Menu 3: raspberry toasted muesli with milk; steak, vegetables and dumplings; beef burrito-style filling with rice; cinnamon cake.
• Menu 4: chicken sausages and beans; chicken curry with potato and rice; pasta bolognese (pork); vanilla flavour cake.
• Menu 5: fruitful muesli with milk; sweet and sour chicken with rice; pasta bolognese (pork); chocolate pudding in chocolate sauce.
• Menu 6: all day breakfast (pork); pasta bolognese (pork); Indonesian-style spicy rice with pork; vanilla flavour cake.
• Menu 7: vegetarian all day breakfast; vegetable and chickpea biryani; rajma masala with cooked rice; chocolate flavour cake.
• Menu 8: all day breakfast (pork); spicy sauce and potato wedges (pork); beef burrito-style filling with rice; orange flavour cake.
• Menu 9: fruitful muesli with milk; sausage casserole (pork); pindi chana aloo; chocolate pudding in chocolate sauce.
• Menu 10: instant porridge; beef burrito-style filling with rice; hunters chicken; chocolate marble cake.

Menus change between production runs. Forces News, opening a pack in 2025, found Kashmiri potato curry with rice and a beef stew with vegetables, which are not in the 2022 General Purpose list, so treat any online list, this one included, as a guide and check the menu number and pack date on the box. The same MOD document lists 10 menus each for the vegetarian, halal, kosher and Sikh/Hindu packs; the vegetarian menus include 3 bean chilli, mac and cheese, Moroccan-style bean stew and vegetable korma.

What is an army ration pack?

An army ration pack is a sealed box of ready-cooked food, snacks and drinks that feeds one soldier for a set period without a kitchen. The British Army's standard version is the 24-hour Operational Ration Pack, usually called an ORP or a "rat pack".

The main meals are cooked and sealed in pouches, so they can be eaten cold or heated in a mess tin of boiling water. Each box carries a pack date, and the MOD's menu sheets show the code format printed on it ("Pxx Pack Date xx/xxxx"). The MOD buys them through a supply contract run by Leidos Supply, planned to run from April 2023 to March 2030, according to the 2021 Contracts Finder notice for operational ration packs.

On the hardest days a soldier can need more than the box provides, which is why an Enhanced version exists; the gap, and how to close it, is the subject of our guide to military field nutrition.

What's inside a British Army 24-hour ration pack?

Besides the four meal pouches, every General Purpose pack holds drink powders, a snack layer and a set of common items listed by the MOD.

• Drinks: four drink powders, usually including a fortified energy drink or an isotonic powder, plus a hot chocolate.
• Snacks: biscuits (Biscuits Brown, oat or cheese biscuits), a bar, sweets or fruit snack such as a sesame bar, fruit flapjack, exotic fruit nougat or cola bottles, a bag of nuts (salted, chilli or barbecue peanuts, or "Just Nuts"), and a spread: jam, cheese spread or peanut butter.
• Brew kit: two instant coffees, two tea bags, four sugars and four whiteners.
• Kit: a spork, spicy red chilli sauce, water purification tablets, windproof and waterproof matches, two alcohol-free wipes, tissues, chewing gum and a reusable polybag.

That brew kit says a lot about British field priorities. It also shows the pack is designed around a mess tin of boiling water, so plan for a stove if you carry one on a walk.

What other British ration packs are there?

The MOD lists nine ration packs with set menus plus Emergency Survival Rations, which have no menu.

• 24-hour General Purpose: the standard pack, 10 menus.
• 24-hour Vegetarian, Halal, Kosher and Sikh/Hindu: religious and cultural variants, 10 menus each.
• 24-hour Enhanced: the standard pack "with additional supplements provided to meet the energy demand", in the MOD's words, and a flameless ration heater.
• 24-hour Cold Climate: built around freeze-dried main meals, according to the Contracts Finder notice.
• 8-hour Single Meal Ration: one main meal, snacks and drinks, with a flameless ration heater.
• 10-Man: a group ration prepared by chefs, largely from commercial components.
• Emergency Survival Rations: water, sweets, energy bars and similar items, with no menus.

The old "compo", the composite ration boxed to feed a group of soldiers, survives in spirit in the 10-Man pack; the individual 24-hour box is what most people mean by a ration pack today.

How many calories are in a British Army ration pack?

A British Army 24-hour ration pack holds around 4,000 calories, the figure Forces News gave in 2025, and the Enhanced version adds supplements for days when that is not enough.

Calories per gram is where the pack shows its purpose. The main meals are cooked food sealed with their water still in them, which is what lets you eat them cold, but it makes them heavy for what they give. Chilli con carne with rice, ready to eat, carries 116 calories per 100g in McCance and Widdowson's UK food tables; a freeze-dried chilli con carne from Firepot carries 442 per 100g dry.

Here is what that means for 1,000 calories of the same dish: about 860g ready to eat, against about 230g freeze-dried. Dense high calorie bars sit at around 4.5 calories per gram; ours carry up to 557 calories in only 120g, so 1,000 calories of them weighs about 220g. If calories per gram is what you shop on, we have ranked the highest calorie bars in the UK by exactly that.

None of that is a criticism of the ration pack. It is designed for soldiers with vehicles, resupply and the need to eat without stopping to cook. It is the key fact for anyone carrying food on their own back.

How long do British Army ration packs last?

A British Army 24-hour ration pack must have at least 24 months of shelf life left when it is delivered into the MOD's supply chain, so a new pack keeps for two years or more; the date on the box is the answer for any individual pack.

Search engines sometimes answer this question with "24 hours", which is how long a pack feeds you, not how long it keeps. The same Contracts Finder notice sets 24 months of remaining life for the 8-hour and 10-Man rations and 48 months for Emergency Survival Rations. For comparison, the US Defense Logistics Agency gives its MREs a shelf life of three years at 80°F (about 27°C), longer if stored cold. Heat shortens shelf life, so a pack kept in a cool cupboard will outlast one left in a car boot.

Can civilians buy army ration packs?

Yes. MOD-issue 24-hour packs reach civilians through military surplus dealers, prepper shops and online marketplaces; in October 2026, UK sellers were listing single packs at roughly £16 to £19.

Civilian-made "army style" 24-hour packs follow the same format with fresh production dates, usually at £25 to £30. Before you buy either kind, check that the seller states the pack date, avoid opened or re-made boxes assembled from loose items, and expect to take whatever menus the surplus trade has that month. Bought with those checks, an issue pack is one of the cheaper ways to feed one person for a day outdoors, and opening one is good fun.

British ration packs vs American MREs

A US MRE is a single meal averaging 1,250 calories, so a day takes three of them, about 3,750 calories; a British 24-hour pack puts a whole day of around 4,000 calories in one box.

The US Defense Logistics Agency, which buys MREs, gives the average split as 13% protein, 36% fat and 51% carbohydrate, lists 24 menus, and has packed a flameless ration heater into every meal bag since mid-1992. The British General Purpose pack assumes a mess tin of boiling water instead, which also makes the tea; the Enhanced pack and the 8-hour single meal include a heater.

For eating outdoors in Britain, the British pack is the better buy: at the UK prices we saw in October 2026, a single imported MRE cost around £15 against £16 to £19 for a full British day, and the brew kit is built in. Imported MREs are mostly bought for the experience, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Are ration packs good for hiking, DofE and expeditions?

Ration packs are excellent where weight does not matter and a poor choice where you carry everything for several days, because the wet main meals are heavy for their calories.

The case for is strong. A ration pack is complete, hard to damage, edible cold in an emergency, and a hot main meal with a proper brew at the end of a hard day does a lot for morale. For car camping, basecamps, canoe trips, cadet exercises and single-night wild camps, they are hard to beat. For Duke of Edinburgh groups they also teach logistics, though our guide to youth expedition food covers lighter ways to feed a DofE team.

The case against is arithmetic. As above, 1,000 calories of wet chilli and rice weighs about 860g, against 230g freeze-dried. On a three-day self-supported route, the difference across all your main meals runs into kilograms, and the empty pouches and box come home with you too.

Experienced long-distance walkers solve the same problem by pairing freeze-dried dinners with dense food they can eat on the move. That daytime layer is where Phoenix Bars fit: two bars carry up to 1,114 calories in 240g with no stove, water or washing up, and a bar dense enough to work as a meal replacement covers the lunch a ration pack handles with biscuits and spread. Our comparison of the best energy bars for hiking does the maths across the category. The set-up I would choose is a hybrid: dense expedition energy bars and freeze-dried meals on the moving days, and one full ration pack for the night you have earned it.

Are army ration packs good for emergency food storage?

They can be, as long as you track the pack dates: a new pack keeps for two years or more, it needs no fridge, and it can be eaten cold if the power is off.

The weak point is cost and space. A week for a family of four is 28 packs, about £450 at £16 each, and bulky next to tins and dry staples, which is why most household plans use ration packs as a small part of a store, not all of it. Our guide to emergency food preparedness covers how much to keep and how to rotate it, and our guide to survival food in the UK compares ration packs with the other long-life options.

A short history of the British ration

The modern box stands on a century of trial and error. The First World War soldier lived largely on bully beef and hard army biscuit, and the Second World War brought the composite ration, the "compo", boxed to feed a group of men for a day. Tolkien, who served on the Western Front in 1916, gave his travellers a hard-wearing waybread of their own, the subject of our guide to lembas bread. Today's individual 24-hour pack, with its rotating menus and religious and cultural variants, is the latest answer to the same question: how do you put a day of food for a working soldier in a box?

Army ration pack FAQ

What are army rations called? In the British Army, the 24-hour Operational Ration Pack, shortened to ORP or "rat pack"; older soldiers may still say "compo", from the composite group ration. The US equivalent is the MRE, or Meal, Ready-to-Eat. The general term for all of them is a field ration.

What do soldiers eat in the field? On exercise or operations away from a kitchen, British soldiers eat the 24-hour ration pack, around 4,000 calories a day. Where chefs can set up, the 10-Man group ration is cooked for a group, and in barracks soldiers eat in the cookhouse like any canteen.

Do ration packs need cooking? No. The main meals are already cooked and sealed, so they can be eaten cold straight from the pouch. Most people heat them in a mess tin of boiling water; the Enhanced pack and the 8-hour single meal ration include a flameless ration heater.

Is there a gluten-free army ration pack? Not as a separate pack. The MOD's list has vegetarian, halal, kosher and Sikh/Hindu variants, and says every item is labelled with dietary information. If you need gluten-free food for a trip, read each pouch label or build your own pack from gluten-free food.

Are civilian ration packs the same as army ones? No. Civilian-made 24-hour packs copy the format, a day of meals, snacks and drinks in one box, but they are not MOD issue. Their advantage is a known, recent production date; check the calories and pack date on the label before you rely on one.

Flaming Phoenix has no connection to the Ministry of Defence. We just work on the same problem the ration pack solves: getting a hard day's food into the smallest, toughest package possible.

Sources: MOD FOI response FOI2022/03514, ration pack types and menus (April 2022); Contracts Finder, Operational Ration Packs notice (2021); Forces News, We try a British Army ration pack (May 2025); US Defense Logistics Agency, MRE; CoFID 2021; Firepot label via a UK retailer, checked October 2026.