Photo: Steven Senne/AP

Three-year-old pizza may not sound good to you, but when you’re a soldier who’s been stationed in the Middle East for a year, thousands of miles from the comforts of home, the familiar taste of a pepperoni pizza, in any form, can be quite a welcome treat.

This is just one of the reasons why pizza has been the No. 1 most requested Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) among military officers since 1981, and why the U.S. Military Lab in Massachusetts has spent years working to figure out how to make a slice that would survive in a standard issue meal kit for up to three years.

The issue has always been with the tomato sauce and cheese causing sogginess, a problem the lab says they’ve now solved by using humectants, changing the acidity of the ingredients and making improvements to the packaging.

The pizza is in its final phase of testing, with researchers reporting that the taste is similar to a pan pizza.