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PORTSIDE CULTURE

6 POPULAR FOODS THAT CAME FROM THE MILITARY  
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Tony Dunnell
April 9, 2026
historyfacts.com
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_ Some foods created specifically for soldiers — or adopted and
popularized by the military — have found their way from the ration
pack to supermarket shelves across America. _

Legend has it that M&Ms were inspired by sugar-shelled chocolates
soldiers ate during the Spanish Civil War., Kristoffer Tripplaar/
Alamy Stock Photo

 

War is full of logistical challenges, one of the major concerns — in
conflicts both ancient and modern — being how to feed the armies
doing the fighting. Whether it’s Roman legionaries, British
Redcoats, or modern infantry, soldiers have always needed a reliable
supply of food to maintain both their energy levels and morale. As
the old saying
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“An army marches on its stomach.” 

Military rations have existed since at least the time of ancient Rome,
when soldiers received
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pounds of bread a day, sometimes with meat, olive oil, and wine.
Today, U.S. troops are provided with MREs — “Meals,
Ready-to-Eat” — which are carefully tested, formulated, and
packaged rations designed to sustain soldiers during training and
military operations. These MREs have a shelf life of three years and
can survive being dropped from an aircraft. But not every soldier is a
fan of these pouches of food, which they sometimes refer to
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“Meals, Rarely Edible” or “Meals Rejected by the Enemy.” 

While modern MREs don’t often come with glowing reviews, some foods
created specifically for soldiers — or adopted and popularized by
the military — have become beloved by the civilian population. Here
are six foods that managed to find their way from the ration pack to
supermarket shelves across America. 

M&Ms

In the 1930s, Forrest Mars Sr. (the son of Mars founder Franklin
Clarence Mars) was traveling in Europe. According to confectionary
legend, it was during this time that Forrest Mars observed soldiers
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pellets surrounded by a sugar shell during the Spanish Civil War.
Inspired, he took the concept back to the United States where, in
1941, M&Ms were born. 

With World War II already underway, M&Ms were initially
made specifically
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the U.S. military, providing an ideal way for soldiers to carry
energy-rich chocolate in tropical climates without it melting. In
1947, the candy was made available to the public, and its popularity
has never waned since. 

Cheetos

Cheesy puff snacks and the chaos of warfare may seem diametrically
opposed, but it’s the military we must thank for the former’s
existence — including the top-selling brand, Cheetos. Their origin
can be traced back to the Natick Soldier Systems Center
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a U.S. Army research complex responsible for the development of the
U.S. military’s food, clothing, and shelters. 

One of the items to come out of the research complex was processed and
powdered cheese, which was created for military use in World War
II. According to
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Marx de Salcedo, author of _Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the U.S.
Military Shapes the Way You Eat_, by the end of the war “a whole
little industry had sprung up to support this dehydrated cheese.”
And one of the very first
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to use the cheesy powder was the now-ubiquitous Cheetos.  

Credit: Underwood Archives
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Archive Photos via Getty Images 

Instant Coffee

Instant coffee isn’t a modern invention — it was created and
patented as a “coffee compound” by an Englishman named John Dring
in 1771. It later appeared in cake form
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the American Civil War, before being refined by Japanese chemist
Satori Kato, whose soluble coffee was introduced to the public at the
Pan-American Exposition of 1901. 

Instant coffee as we know it today became commonplace during World War
I, providing a quick and easy taste of home for soldiers on the front
lines. The Department of Defense began buying
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much as 37,000 pounds of coffee powder each day, at which point the
instant coffee industry skyrocketed. Then, in 1938, Nestlé introduced
its new product, Nescafé. With the outbreak of World War II, Nescafé
was included in the emergency rations of every U.S. soldier, further
cementing the popularity of the instant brew.  

Minute Maid

In 1942, the U.S. Army offered a lucrative contract to any company
that could figure out a process for producing palatable frozen orange
juice — deemed necessary for keeping vitamin C levels at acceptable
levels among the troops. It wasn’t until 1945 that a viable process
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which point the Florida Foods Corporation won the contract to produce
500,000 pounds of orange juice concentrate. 

However, the war ended
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the product was shipped. Finding itself sitting on a giant mound of
oranges, Florida Foods changed its name to the Vacuum Foods
Corporation a year later and began selling the nation’s first
concentrated frozen orange juice, which it called Minute Maid (in
reference to the product’s quick and easy preparation). Despite
initially slow sales, Minute Maid eventually took off — with the
help of a catchy jingle
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paving the way for similar frozen products. 

TV Dinners

The first successful frozen prepackaged meal — what was later dubbed
the “TV dinner” — hit supermarket shelves in 1953. Produced
by Swanson [[link removed]], it was
a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cornbread stuffing, and peas. But while
Swanson took TV dinners to the masses, the concept was originally
developed for the military. 

In 1945, Maxson Food Systems manufactured the first complete frozen
meal — known as “Strato-Plates
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— specifically to be reheated for troops and other passengers on
long military flights. A typical meal was a basic three-part combo of
meat, vegetable, and potato, each housed in its own compartment on a
plastic plate. Maxson’s frozen meals never made it to the civilian
retail market, but they were the precursors of the TV dinner, despite
no TVs being involved. 

Spam

Though Spam wasn’t invented specifically for the military, war
rations certainly helped popularize it. When Spam was created in 1937
by Hormel Foods Corporation, it was seen as a way to increase sales of
unprofitable pork shoulder, which was then considered an undesirable
cut. Initially, sales of Spam were poor, partly because people had
doubts about canned meat being safe for consumption. Then World War II
began, and the U.S. military saw Spam as a perfect addition to its
soldiers’ rations, being affordable, filling, easily portable, and
shelf stable. 

Spam accompanied U.S. troops all over the world, with 100 million
cans shipped out
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Pacific theater alone. It became something of a culinary icon during
the war, and went on to become an enduring supermarket staple —
today, more than 9 billion
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sold.

 

 

 

* food technology; food research
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