Following a recent court case, the specifics of which are not really germaine to this article, a ruling in favour of the MoD was handed down. It now seems as if all ration packs for the MoD are now prohibited for resale, so any that you might find for commercial sale may well be 'stolen property'. I therefore heartily advise you NOT to seek GP ration packs, as it may be that possession of such could lead to charges of 'possession of stolen property', or 'handling stolen property'. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
I was wondering if anyone knew anything more about this. I know all the boxes are marked 'for MoD use only' but does that apply to the stuff sold on ebay/surplars stores?
Ten year shelf life listed on the packs still I think, so the older dates get sold off for surplus!Hence you will find the surplus packs have the later dates, and the "iffy" ones that could now conceivably land you in hot water in the legalities issue, manufacture dates within the last couple of years, most possibly. I know of a legitimate retailer of army srplus selling these off in bulk offer at the moment, and he would be mortified to think of it as being illegal, as he buys in bulk himself too from a legitimate wholesaler of the rat packs!
I have started a thread on this at Army Rumour Service Forum or "arrse" as it is better known! Maybe someone there can shed some more light on this issue soon, perhaps?
I was intending to get myself ten of the rat packs on offer price from the above bulk retailer of surplus kit, the very good genuinearmysurplus.co.uk, that I have on occasion shopped with before. Sadly due to the run of demand on the ten rat packs for just over fifty quid offer of recent, they are out of stock again now of the item.I have emailed them to ask when they will have the item again though, and will post here the reply.
I have now found the original forum remarks upon this, that seem to be dated 2005!; but it all seems most odd to me now, in that they seem to think there, that the boxes of rations that now bear the markings "FOR MOD USE ONLY" are a relatively new thing! They are not in fact, and have been so marked on said rations for a very good few years now, that I have personally seen, well before 2005 at least to my knowledge!
No no! It just appears that you may have read an old report anyway Dani, that no one in the world of buying and selling these rat packs has taken any real notice of, is all!Probably because it is not worth the time and trouble of the MOD police and regular police liaising to work out which rat packs might be legitimate and which are not! As on the whole they still need to be selling off their stocks of short dated ones from the MOD stores, and replace periodically with newer dated fresher stock ones for service issue etc!
Hence you will find the surplus packs have the later dates, and the "iffy" ones that could now conceivably land you in hot water in the legalities issue, manufacture dates within the last couple of years, most possibly. I know of a legitimate retailer of army srplus selling these off in bulk offer at the moment, and he would be mortified to think of it as being illegal, as he buys in bulk himself too from a legitimate wholesaler of the rat packs!
I have emailed them to ask when they will have the item again though, and will post here the reply.
