THE United States held up British emergency rations worth £4 million for five days because of fears about the safety of European meat.

As the refugee crisis that followed the floods in Louisiana grew during the week, more than 400,000 military ration packs sat at two airfields in America.

Washington had requested them last weekend, but the meals fell foul of a United States Department of Agriculture ban on the import of certain products from the European Union.

But last night, five days after the first batches of aid arrived from Britain and after negotiations with the British Government, the agency waived the ban, paving the way for the food to be distributed to those who need it.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said: “The United States Department of Agriculture has cleared ration packs for onward distribution. Meals from all EU member states have been cleared.”

However, British defence staff are furious that the delay prevented the rations from reaching the refugees for whom they were intended until this weekend.

One member of the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Logistics Organisation, which helped to organise the airlift, said: “Can you imagine how this is going down at our end? People were working their butts off on Sunday and Monday to make this happen. This aid wasn’t volunteered. The US asked for it.

“We moved heaven and earth to get this stuff out there. You don’t send half a million ration packs if you don’t think they’re going to be used.”

The MoD estimates that the cost of supplying the meals was about £6 million.

A spokeswoman said: “The packs themselves cost £3 million to £4 million and the airlift cost around $4 million (£2.2 million).

“We responded as quickly as possible to a request from the US authorities following Hurricane Katrina — including specifically a request for emergency ration packs. Some of these packs have arrived on US soil and the handling of this is now a matter for the US authorities. It’s a matter for them if and how they distribute these packs.”

The first batch of ration packs left RAF Brize Norton in two aircraft on Monday morning. About half a million meals were assembled for transportation, of which 400,000 are at two airfields, one at Little Rock, Arkansas, the other in Texas.

Shipment of the remaining 100,000 packs had been suspended.

The packs sitting on the tarmac in Texas and Arakansas are standard issue British military rations, designed to feed one soldier on operations for 24 hours.

Each one has 3,500 calories and can sustain a civilian in less-physically demanding circumstances for two days. The packs include a boil-in-the-bag breakfast, a main meal, a dessert, savoury snacks, biscuits, sweets, coffee and tea and tissues.

Breakfast options are typically sausage or bacon served with beans. Lunch might be a beef stew and dumplings, a chicken curry or a lamb hotpot. Desserts include rice pudding and chocolate roll with chocolate sauce.

Vegetarian versions have also been sent.

Inside the cardboard pack there is a mini-stove and matches to heat up meals and drinks, but they can be eaten cold if necessary.

Perhaps confusingly for their intended recipients, one of the chocolate bars supplied in the packs is a Yorkie bar that bears the slogan “Not for civvies.”

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