Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
US soldiers heat frozen pizzas on their truck at Patrol Base Wilson in Afghanistan on April 25, 2008.
- The US Army is finally getting pizza for troops in the field after roughly three decades of requests from soldiers for one of the most popular foods in America.
- The pizza Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) will be available to soldiers sometime in the next year or so.
- The pizza MRE that's coming to US Army soldiers will include pepperoni, but soldiers will have to wait longer for more toppings.
The US Army is finally getting pizza for troops in the field after roughly three decades of requests from soldiers for one of the most popular foods in America, though toppings will initially be quite limited.
The pizza Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) will be available to soldiers some time in the next year or so, Army Times reported. It will reportedly be available in some locations by the end of 2018 and more broadly distributed in 2019.
The Combat Feeding Directive has been working on the pizza MRE since 2012. Army protocol calls for MREs to have a shelf life of three years when stored at 80 degrees or below for the food to be a solid option for troops in the field. For a long time, the pizza MRE kept turning brown as officials tested it under these standards, and in March 2017 it was announced its release would be delayed indefinitely until the problem could be solved.
There were no health or safety concerns regarding the brown pizza, but there were concerns that it wasn't high quality. In short, the Army felt the brown pizza wouldn't be very appetizing to soldiers.
"We want to make sure we give [troops] a quality product," David Accetta, a spokesman for the Combat Feeding Directorate at the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, told Army Times in February.
But officials ultimately discovered that rosemary extract was the solution to this problem, and now troops will soon be able to enjoy a food they've waited years for.
The pizza MRE that's coming to US Army soldiers will include pepperoni, according to Army Times, but it might be some time before other toppings are introduced.