At the recent BSDA defence & security expo in Bucharest I had my first sight of a Romanian Army ICR (Individual Combat Ration) from Jomipsa, writes Bob Morrison.
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In the four years since I last visited the BSDA (Black Sea Defense and Aerospace) expo in Bucharest ~ I had to miss the 2024 edition because at the time I was recuperating from major surgery ~ the Romanian Army has issued two different types of Individual Combat Ration or ICR. One of these (Tan Outer) according to printing on the outside was produced by Swedish company SERAC AG, using RationTech components, and the other (Green Outer) was produced by Spanish company Jomipsa, using mostly their own components. Not only I was able to photograph one of the latter at BSDA 2026 earlier this month, but our friends from Alicante provided me with an unlabelled sample pack with contents that are in-date until January 2027 to allow me to try it out.
In brief, the Jomipsa Romanian Army Individual Combat Ration (Armata Românie Rație Individuale de Luptă) is a 2600g outer plastic bag containing three individual bags – Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner – configured to provide sufficient calories and nutrients for the individual soldier participating in very high intensity combat for at least 24 hours; in an emergency it could also be split to give each of three soldiers a single day’s basic subsistence ration. The pack also intentionally provides about 50% more energy than the standard NATO 24-hour temperate climate ration pack; this is probably unsurprising bearing in mind Romania has learnt lessons from the Russian-instigated open warfare* taking place in neighbouring Ukraine since 2022. NATO has also beefed up its forward presence in Romania in response to fears of further expansionism and this ration pack exceeds Alliance requirements for multinational forces supply.
Footnote: The first five months of 2026 have been a bit frenetic for me, and it looks like the pace won’t ease off much before Midsummer, but once the next round of defence expos is out of the way I’ll try to undertake a full review of the Jomipsa Romanian Army IRC for this section of the website.
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* Just days before this article was penned a Russian drone incursion across Romania’s eastern border injured civilians when it hit an apartment block.
