• ALEXANDRIA, Va.
Following up its successful five-week Foodservice Webinar Series, the American Logistic Association (ALA) convened its in-person Foodservice Summit on June 11 at the National Industries For the Blind (NIB) Building.
Directly following the ALA Congressional Caucus and Public Policy Forum, which was held on June 10, this meeting — hosted by ALA President Steve Rossetti — took note of the discussions and information gained during the webinar series, and went beyond the scope of that series, further examining and developing a report of findings, innovative practices, challenges, and recommendations for improving the overall foodservice experience on military installations.
WORKING SESSIONS
The strategic working sessions, facilitated by Deloitte, built upon the five-part webinar series to orient participants around the core challenges and opportunities in military foodservice. The five key focus areas of the working session: Supply Chain & Inventory Management, Performance/Nutrition & Health, Technology & Innovation, Quality of Life, and Customer Experience (CX).
Participants—ranging from military foodservice leaders like the Marine Corps’ Ed Cutshall and Ric Pomeroy to diverse industry representatives—were divided into small, mixed-group tables. Each group was presented with realistic foodservice scenarios and engaged in collaborative discussions to identify solutions, analyze root causes, and explore tertiary impacts. Guided prompts encouraged deeper thinking: What must be true? What barriers exist? How is the servicemember impacted? Who are the additional stakeholders? What’s the level of effort vs. impact? Tables shared their conclusions in a collaborative findings review.
A highlight of the session included a creative activity that challenged participants to write aspirational future headlines envisioning the transformation of military foodservice. Some of the top headlines included:
- “Families first: Open dining to dependents at a discount, other civilians at full retail”
- “Best food in America isn’t at a Michelin star — it’s in the DoD”
- “Army builds community through food”
- “DoD overhauls soldier dining experience for soldiers at Fort Carson — ‘Food is plentiful, healthy, and tastes amazing’”
Deloitte’s Helene DeHarde, encouraged participants to stay focused on the long-term vision, reminding the group that the goal was to revisit these headlines in a year and assess how close the progress had come to making them a reality.
After the conclusion of the working groups portion of the program findings from the ALA Military Foodservice Summit working groups will be rendered into a formal report, including actionable recommendations, which will be presented to appropriate parties.
The ALA Military Foodservice Webinar Series & Summit Sponsors: 365 Retail Markets, Coca-Cola, Coastal Pacific Food Distributors, Deloitte, EURPAC, Fairlife, IBM, Joyce Marie Sweet Potato Pie & Cheesecake, Mars Wrigley, Tyson Foods, U.S. Soy.
OPENING REMARKS
Rossetti said, “ALA has been working to reinforcing the partnership between industry and the government in order to fix a very fundamental problem in our military.
“There are so many great things being done in so many sectors of the military, so what we have to be able to do is to leverage all of these beneficial practices, and start to pull things together from a learning standpoint, and render our recommendations on how we get the right path to making sure that our troops get all they need when they need it.
“There is a shift in the political narrative here in Washington, and in the national security narrative, where things are more focused on direct warfighting capabilities. I think that we need to look at military bases now as power projection platforms, and warfighting support, and pull together the best practices to take care of the troops.”
Rossetti said that the shifting demographics of the force need to be understood, “and how to react to that.
“Are they better paid, are the more tech savvy, they want choice … all of these demographic features that are involved [need to be understood] to deal with that.”
The ALA president said that another part of this, being that ALA is a trade association that works with federal partners, “We have an opportunity to bring to them the power of American industry to enhance the food ecology and to contribute to the Defense mission.
“We do need to be respectful of service prerogatives and respective service requirements. We don’t intend to usurp those; we intend to bring together the best to serve the best, and we strongly believe that the sum is greater than the parts.
“Right now, ALA is the only association that represents food across the installation, and has the capability to bring industry to the party, and we are dedicated to taking all of our resources and expertise to uplift the food experience for our military.”
Rossetti continued, “There appears to be no better spokesman for the potential, some of the issues, than Robert Irvine. We are very honored to have you with us today.
“He has had his shoulder to this wheel for years … he is a nationally recognized expert on food, a celebrity — most of you have seen him in various media — speaking with him this morning, I just got a renewed vigor and a fresh outlook on the possibilities that we have in front of us to get it right.
“We view this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take collective brainpower and with minimal resources, be able to bring more resources to this issue with our Congressional partners, with our federal partners, to get it right.”
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
In addition to working group sessions that took place throughout the day, attendees heard from the session’s keynote speaker, noted celebrity chef/entrepreneur and staunch military advocate Robert Irvine.
In a roundtable conversation with Rossetti, Irvine spoke about many topics during his nearly 90-minute discussion, including his early career; what he and his team has already done to boost military feeding; and what still needs to be done to bring military feeding up to the level it should be at.
The overriding theme of the discussion was how to make military food better for our service members.
Here are some of Irvine’s comments.
On what measures need to be taken to improve military food …
“We have to get the troop suppliers, the DAL people, and we have to sit around the table and take the ego out of the conversation. The reality is this: we need each other to be able to do that job.
“So collectively, the issue is all of our issues. I can say something, but you can’t get upset, and you can say something, but I can’t get upset because I don’t like it. That is an ego thing.
“The reality is that this is what is happening right now, today. How are we going to fix that, because if we don’t fix that, it will go on and continue to go on in this spiral, so that we don’t have people who want to be part of the forces, period.
“And it is simple. Food is a necessity, just like a bullet [is to our military]. If I give you a rifle and say, ‘Here is one bullet, and you have to take on the Chinese Army,’ you’ll get one shot off, and then what? You will hit them as hard as you can, until they overrun you.
“We are there. It sounds very dramatic when I say that, but food service and nutrition gives resiliency and helps with retention and recruitment.
“This is the biggest platform, right now … food … the pilot needs to eat. The pilot flying at 82,000 feet, needs a specific diet before he flies for three days.
“It is all about this system called food. We have to feed them the best, most nutritious food, not the tail end of frozen salmon because it is cheaper.
“What about good salmon, or the good vegetables? Don’t tell me that a can of green beans is better than fresh green beans. Again, you can’t always get fresh stuff, but we are too often using canned food.
“Why? We have someone running the base dining facility that says here is the first two weeks of the menu cycle, and then two weeks later, at the end of the month, we know we have reach a certain budget, so out come the canned green beans, out come the canned vegetables?
“At any base in the U.S., you will find canned green beans and canned diced vegetables. Why? I don’t get it. Why? That goes back to training, that goes back to education, it goes back to the product assortment, the catalog.
“I used to work at Cisco for four or five years. And I said to them, why do you have 75 different French fries … ‘well, one likes crinkle cuts, and another likes another cut.’ It is ridiculous.
“Figure out, here is your five, and that is it. The catalog should be one that is never stable. It changes every few months, because seasons change, you keep your staples, obviously, but it’s like the cycle of menus … why do we have cycle menus? Why is one nine days and another one is 28 days? Why aren’t they all the same?
“We will still buy the product, we will still have chicken on three days, but I want Taco Tuesday because I like tacos, but the rest of the week, I am going out to the store because I don’t like the crap that I am being fed. …
“The military is not innovative. That is not what they do. It is up to us as industry to innovate the next thing to help … why not a beef stew, so I know what calories are in it, what nutrition is in it, I know how to cook it for 20 minutes. It should have simple instructions.
“We have to make it simpler, we have to make it faster, and we have to make it more nutritious, and I think we are seeing that in industry, but we are not seeing that translate yet.
“I think that is the future. Things are actually happening. Look at food trucks. They are amazing. Automated grab and go feeding stations …
“Since I have done Fort Jackson, S.C., it cost them $1.5 million to create the Fort Jackson grab and go. The dining facility does 13 million meals a year. It is literally ‘from me to you’ with our grab and go there. There is no wall.
“I put a pizza station there. Well, people say that pizza, that isn’t healthy. Multi-grain crust, vegan cheese, there is nothing bad on it. We get the pizzas out in 35 minutes there.
“We feed, through that grab and go, fresh, healthy food. We get 500 people a day.
“So imagine me being able to do that in a dining facility. We can put out thousands of meals and save money … all of a sudden, I am getting my money back, to use to buy better food and run a better facility.
“That is where we have to be going, not some guy peeling potatoes, although, we don’t peel them anymore.
“But again, I go back to the training. I go to any dining facility … they have to look at the knives that they are using … often, the knives are useless. I just sent Japanese knives to some dining facilities, and given to individual cooks so they don’t get ruined.
“So again, it’s training … there is a whole ecosystem … you look at these new gyms. I tell officials on base that all the money you spent on these gyms mean nothing. If I can’t cook good food, with less sodium, less sugar, it really doesn’t matter. It will keep you running for a little bit, and then, you will drop.”
On the attraction of military entities, and keeping share of wallet on base versus elsewhere …
“I work very closely with Walmart, Costco; they are the big brothers of commissaries and exchanges … given the people that those stores are serving, giving them the shopping experience … the minute you walk into a Walmart store, 99 percent of the household is run by the female. When you walk down an aisle, you are selling something, stores are busy because of location, and the experience you get when you go in there.
“One thing I love about exchanges and commissaries, you often have veterans serving you. That is a very direct experience to walk into a store, versus somebody chewing gum and they are on their cell phones.
“Look, the prices are already going to be cheaper at the military stores, but it’s the experience you get in the military stores.”
On the benefits of collaboration …
“The tough part is that people don’t want to sit around a table, and believe that it is theirs and theirs only, but if they collaborate, that pie will be bigger.
“We don’t have time anymore … each of our kids has things to do, one goes to practice … we don’t have the physical time to literally ‘chop, chop, chop,’ we don’t have that.
“Next week, I have a seminar with para-rescue guys and their wives next week. I am teaching them how to create a menu, or at least the outline of a menu, for the rest of the week.
“It is no different than feeding 20,000 people in four hours. Logistically, it is ‘A, B, C, D and E’ and each one of you brings something for that logistic plan.
“And I get that all the time. The president’s office calls our office, and tells us that they have to feed x amount of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen … and we have two days to figure that out, to get their food there and get the equipment there.
“I have to use collectively a team of people that often I have never worked with. The biggest thing is how do you get this right. It is OK to disagree, but say your piece, mean your piece, and take responsibility for that piece.
“Look, I know that several people are not going to like me. I am OK with not being liked, as long as I can fix the problem that I am trying to address.
“And if I say to Tyson, I need 40,000 lbs. of chicken, believe me, they have done it, they have gotten it there every time. They have never let me down, or any other company that I have asked for help.
“Imagine all of you in this room today who have resources to help each other, and systems that can help others get better.
“We are afraid to do that … it’s like Coca-Cola giving Pepsi the recipe. We don’t want to give our secrets away.
“I am saying transparency, we can help each other, and you would be surprised at what happens when you help each other. Your sales go through the roof because you have better channels.
“If Tyson says, ‘I can’t do that,’ or ‘I don’t want to do that,’ and then you pick that up. I don’t know any other way to say it.”
On getting military food right …
“Now is the opportunity. And listening to the men and women that I listen to that are in the trenches every day — and that is not necessarily people on the receiving end, but people on the doing end — I have been trying to do this for 14 years, and we have managed to come up with a blueprint, and test the blueprint that it works in this area.
“Now, we can go one step further, on a bigger scale, to see if there will be any headings on a bigger scale, but I don’t think there will be.
“I have had to learn the nuances of the military system, the bureaucratic system on top of the military system, and that ‘the 30-year veterans are not going to change’ kind of thing.
“I have listened, I have understood, I have made mistakes … it is OK to make mistakes, but I don’t make the same mistake twice … but at least I understand this system.”
“’I know you are saying no, but why don’t you just try it, and let’s see where it goes, because I am thinking that it will work.’
“We’ve done that, we have fixed it, and it works.
“There is always going to be a difference of opinion, there’s always going to be ‘I’ve tried that, but it doesn’t work,’ and if I had a dollar every time I have heard that in the past 14 years … I would be a billionaire.
“Look at things differently. You can’t look at things every time the same way. You have to think outside of the box, especially with logistics, where when we are in austere places, it is difficult to get stuff there like food products, or even uniforms.
“We created a uniform, undershirts to be worn under the uniform … we moved the seam to the front, and ‘Merry Christmas!’
“Simple things change the world. Listen to the people who are the end user. Nike is what it is because they listened to the consumer.
“The military is the biggest consumer of milk, chicken, or whatever, uniforms. We had to listen to make the uniforms better … if you look at where we were during World War II and where we are now, it is completely different.
“If someone tells me that we shouldn’t be doing something, then I say, ‘Tell me what you need.’ Once we get that information —
“I just did a big deal with Visionworks related to uniforms for the military, undershirts, underwear, socks, male and female, combat uniforms.
“Again, the mother of invention comes from necessity. We can’t think that everything is good enough anymore. We have to think about what is good for the next generation out there. …
“We are on the right track to getting things done. We are on a roller coaster … it is now moving, the momentum is moving. I don’t ever want to stop that momentum.”
FINAL REMARKS
“There are a lot of people who work in the dining facilities and management programs that are encumbered by systems and resources … they know where they have to go, and it falls to us to do our best to get them the tools they need once we establish what the right direction is to get there,” Rossetti said.
He continued, “ALA will look forward to working with Robert Irvine to make sure that we equip very well intentioned, highly motivated people with the tools they need to get to where they need to be.
“I know that you are going to be at the White House later this week with the president, Secretary Hegseth, talking about these programs, and I hope that you can impart to them that as you are talking to them, there is a group of people that are rolling up their sleeves toward things as they try to get to the right place.
“Leadership and encouragement is going to be key to helping us to break down silos, to break down barriers, to reduce friction, to get to where we need to be.”
Rossetti thanked Irvine for his service to the nation. “You are traveling 365 days around the world to do the right thing, and from our perspective, we are there with you. We look forward to a very robust partnership.”
Irvine replied, “I don’t have the answer. I don’t know all of the answers. Collectively, we can find out the answers. I know the leadership is gung-ho on this, which is great, because they will give us the right time and the right place with the right people.
“Every day is a different day, and I think we have the ability to change, not in just feeding, but change the dynamics of making America proud again. I see every day the pride in the men and women in or armed forces, and when I go to these bases, all over the world, and I listen, and that is what I do, I listen.
“What am I hearing? Without us changing, without us saying, we don’t get things done.”
Irvine continued, “I have no filter. I say what I feel and I feel what I say. And either you like it or you don’t. And if you don’t like it, oh well, sorry.
“All that I want to do is to make a life-changing impression on these men and women who are in the service, and continue to join the service, and give them the tools. And this is the quote: ‘Give them the tools to be able to do their jobs daily.’ Give them the tools so they can actually try it, be more resilient, and that is all of us.
“Thanks for spending a little time with me.”
WEBINAR SESSIONS
After Irvine, attendees heard from Curt Cornelssen, vice president (VP), Strategy Management Group, Balanced Scorecard Institute, who presented a summary of the five foodservice webinar sessions.
Deloitte was not only one of the sponsors of the webinar program, but two of the sessions were hosted by the company’s Helene Deharde, with 20 years in the industry in retail and hospitality. She now works in government practice, mainly for government clients, but also retail and hospitality.
The company also provided speakers Ed Lee, Restaurant Strategy lead during the first session; and Kalyn Fink, Customer Strategy in the second session.
The five areas that the webinars looked into were Department of Defense (DoD) food transformation; integrating nutrition and wellness into the entire military food ecosystem; campus-style dining and other foodservice Innovations; grocery and prepared food innovation; and exchange foodservice innovations through the perspective of the military exchanges.
2025 ALA Military Foodservice Summit Photo Album
Contributions by Larry Lapka and ALA Staff
