Julian Kerr | Brisbane
It’s a little-known fact that all the ADF’s combat ration packs are supplied by a New Zealand company.
Since 2009, Prepack Ltd of Palmerston North has been providing more than 450,000 ration packs a year, principally to Army, and recently won a contract extension that will carry this through to 2017.
The current contract specifies a minimum of 320,000 packs annually but this has invariably been exceeded because of surge requirements, most recently to support the AFP-ADF search for MH317 bodies in the Ukraine.
Prepack is now working closely with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the United Nations, most recently fielding a request a UN request to assemble personal protection kits for the Ebola virus.
According to Business Development Manager Craig McDonald, the Australian ration packs are intended to sustain deployed troops who must be self-supporting for several days. The packs themselves have a shelf life of two years.
The standard one-person pack provides almost 15,000 kilojoules across eight specialist menus, several of which are changed every year.
The five-person pack is generally issued to armoured units, while a dehydrated ration pack is supplied to Special Forces.
Latest developments include fruit which is normally only available in a can, and long-life bread that will allow the inclusion in packs of a bread roll.
Every pack contains three meals, ‘rip and eat’ snacks to be eaten on the move, a range of powdered drinks, condiments, matches to light hexamine-powered stoves, and plastic rubbish bags.
“The UK military generally burn their rubbish but that creates smoke which is not ideal in a combat environment,” said McDonald.