Oh dear. Another thing to go into the landfill. Or worse, dumped in the woods.

I have to say these have been around for about 15 years (at least). My dad used to bring them home from police firearms callouts, if the job went over 8 hours or so they were issued a "hot-can". As I recall I used to quite like the lamb hotpot.

This is much more affordable this time around.. but wolfgang puck branded a version of coffee and possibly soup as well that was sold for like $4-5 a can. It was way to pricey and faded away pretty quick.

I agree with kieron, nescafe (coffee) did this well over 10 years ago here in the UK.

I've had self heating cans of hot chocolate in my emergency bag for over five years.

Im pretty sure Nescafe used to sell coffee in "hotcans" around 1998?? it was pretty advanced. Came black, white or white with sugar!

Although the chemistry is different I can remember self-heating cans of soup being available in the early '60s....!

Can beat you all. They've been in Japan at least before 1990 and cheap. When I arrived here first time back then I remember going cherry blossom viewing and they had some nifty one cup sakes that heated themselves for some hot sake.

Nothing new here, food in self-heating cans was issued to US troops in WWII.

Another self-heating can patent goes back to 1903 by George S. Jewett. Don't know if the can was ever mass produced for sales, though.
http://www.mainememory.net/artifact/35555