HeaterMeals News

HeaterMeals Upgrades Its Food Heater

    10/15/03 - HeaterMeals has upgraded its Flameless Ration Heater (FRH) design found in MREs and HeaterMeals Self-Heating Meals.  The new design allows for greater packaging flexibility, and reduced heating time.

     The previous heater design consisted of baking food-grade iron and magnesium powdered alloy into a 3.5" x 4.25" wafer, enclosing the wafer in a Reemay non-woven fabric bag.  Then the heater was glued on a foam tray, and packaged with every HeaterMeals Self-Heating Entrée.  The shelf-stable meal was placed on the heater in the tray, where the enclosed salt water solution was poured to start the heater, and slid back into the meal box to complete the warm-up process.

     The new design involves food-grade iron and magnesium powdered alloy that is filled into a Reemay non-woven fabric bag by use of a fill & seal machine.  Then the flexible food heater is glued into a high density plastic food heater bag.  The sealed meal is placed in the bag and the salt water is added to start the heater.  This new design has some considerable benefits.

     First, the new design is a more efficient heating process!  The food heater bag holds the heat and steam much more effectively, increasing the efficiency of the heater by 20%, and reducing the time to heat-up a meal.

     Also, the Individual packages of HeaterMealsSelf-Heating Meals have now been reduced in size by 33%.  We've maintained the size of the food portions, but the reduction in the packaging size allowed us to get more meals in a case, without significantly case size.  Both HeaterMeals Entrees, and HeaterMeals Plus cases now include 12 meals.  Before, HeaterMeals Entrees only came in six packs, and HeaterMeals Plus only had ten meals per case.  More meals in less space!

     Finally, the new design resulted in a reduction of waste by eliminating the foam tray found in the meals, and by reducing the amount of paper stock used in each package.