• WASHINGTON
Sponsors of this webinar series include:
365 Retail Markets; Coastal Pacific Food Distributors; Coca-Cola; Deloitte; EURPAC; Fairlife; Joyce Marie Sweet Potato Pie and Cheesecake; Tyson Foods; and U.S. Soy.
The American Logistics Association’s (ALA) Military Foodservice Webinar Series kicked off on April 30, discussing a number of topics related to military foodservice.
The overall theme that ran through the virtual two-hour meeting — the first of five such meetings held on consecutive Wednesdays — was Department of Defense (DoD) food transformation, and the imperative for further change and updating of this platform to meet the current needs of the troops.
WEBINAR OVERVIEW
“This is very exciting, and I think that one way to look at this is that it is probably the first time that all the players in providing food across the installation is getting together throughout this series, and it will include all of the players,” said ALA President Steve Rossetti.
“As we experience these seminars, we will have a compendium of findings, all the best practices, all the things that people are doing in food across the installation and help to coordinate efforts to make sure that we are delivering the best food to the best people in the world,” he noted.
Rossetti told attendees that ALA’s direction is “empowering on-base ecology. All those programs that move across the installation, where money changes hands to provide services and products, that is what we are all about.
“Food is one of those issues that has been an elusive goal in terms of perfecting the food experience on bases, but we hope that this webinar series will allow us to advance the ball in the direction of making sure that our troops have what they want, when they want it, in a quality environment.
“ALA wants food programs that are relevant, appealing, and encourage the troops to take full advantage of their food subsistence benefit.”
Rossetti said that all of the speakers for this webinar series, and the in-person ALA Foodservice Summit, on June 11, “, are all pretty much unsung heroes in taking care of people on military bases, and we hope to bring their expertise to the forefront to solve a lot of issues going forward.
“The military on-base ecology, the commerce ecology, the food ecology is critical to the readiness and the war-fighting capability of the Department of Defense.
“Probably, there are very few areas where we can really make a difference in terms of empowering readiness of the force. This foodservice series will hopefully fix food in a direction that enhances the readiness of the department.”
In terms of readiness, the ALA president noted that the nutritional aspects food are key.
“Making sure that the force is fit to fight is a key objective of what we are all about,” he said. “Sharing a lot of the best practices will greatly empower the effort to ensure that these programs do fulfill that goal of making the force fit to fight.
“And it also provides food security across the installation for millions of beneficiaries, including military families and retirees, active duty folks, reserves, all the beneficiaries that access food programs on base.
“It is well documented that a quality food program can aid in recruiting and retention, and it also reduces health care costs for the department and makes a direct contribution to the readiness and the objectives of the department.”
Rossetti said that he hopes through this series of webinars, “We will identify and eliminate friction points in the military foodservice experience; discuss the adoption of modern payment technology; create a campus-style food program that allows the troops to have what they want when they need it 24/7; and a program that allows troops to choose food products no matter what time of day it is and no matter where they might be on base.
“The exchanges provide dividends to the community programs, and the more participation of military folks in the food programs empowers the exchanges to provide more funding to underwrite community programs.
“Increasing the share of wallet on base floats everybody’s boat because as volume increases, the cost per unit drops, and the quality increases … during this webinar series, we will bring the best minds together to really uplift food on base.”
The ALA president said as the series unfolds, “We are going to be capitalizing on the experience of many of the people involved in the food programs across the installation, and we are going to see in our presentations a lot of exciting things happening in the exchanges, in the commissaries, in the dining facilities to overhaul food on base.
“The seminars will address some long-standing issues that we have, including that the troops are not using their full subsistence benefit … we will use this series to improve the programs so that troops are taking advantage of their basic allowance for subsistence, because right now there is just too much of BAS that is being left on the table instead of being used by the troops to improve not only their financial well-being, but also their fitness and quality of life.”
Rossetti said that through different statistical barometers, the troops are eating, depending on the service, one-half to one-third of their meals in the dining facilities, “and when they aren’t eating at the dining facilities, they are taking money out of their pockets to pay for food that should be delivered to them free.
“The cost for each service member is about $3,000 annually, and in total, the out-of-pocket expenses for the troops when they don’t take advantage of their full BAS approaches $600 million-$700 million-maybe $800 million each year.
“So you will see in these presentations talk about tested and proven practices that work in the system. The commissary agency is moving to provide kiosks and outposts in the barracks, the exchanges moving to more unmanned food centers that are open 24/7. The exchanges are upping their game on healthy food.”
Technology is another major ingredient in the move to provide better foodservice options to the troops.
“Maybe the stretch goal for the future of food on base would be for an app that the troops can use on their phones to get what they want, regardless of the source, and get their BAS applied to that in a declining balance format,” Rossetti explained.
“Besides the kiosks and outposts, you are going to see the commissary moving toward prepared foods, where the troops can access their commissary benefit as well, and even using their basic allowance for subsistence,” he told attendees. “As far as the exchanges, which provide the major amount of food outlets on military bases, have a number of exciting programs that will contribute to the cause.”
As part of the webinar series, dining facility managers will also be heard.
“There are really some interesting and exciting things taking place,” Rossetti said, noting that “the Army is moving toward a more campus-style dining format with the application of technology; the Air Force has been working in this area for some time, and you will hear about their efforts and their experience, their successes in tackling the food issue; and the Navy and Marine Corps have been moving smartly on a whole range of programs to uplift the dining facility experience.”
The ALA VP said that there has been a lot of interest on Capitol Hill and in the department to deal with on-base food.
“What we will be seeing here as we move through this series will be addressing some of those Congressional concerns,” he said. “There was an article recently which heavily mischaracterized DoD’s basic food allowance subsistence program and said that it was being ‘stolen’ from the troops.
“Of course, that is not the case, and we want to clarify that as we are going forward. While the money certainly isn’t ‘stolen,’ quality food offerings will allow the troops to take full advantage of their entitlement.
“The appropriations committees have been dealing with this for some time … identify the problems with BAS and the issues with military food.
Rossetti stated that another way to look at this is, “All the ingredients are here for success. Really what it is going to take is just coming up with the right recipe.
“As we look across the while foodservice ecology and DoD, we see a lot of the nucleus for making this food ecology great. That includes the employment of technology.
“What we are going to be about in this series, is rolling up our sleeves, getting down to what the fixes for the problem are by drawing in the military best practices and the commercial best practices … what is happening outside the gate and how some of these concepts can be brought to bear on the issue.”
The ALA president said that while this is a nutrition issue, “here at ALA, we look at it as a management issue. One of the things that we can do at ALA is because we have all the pedigree companies as members of the association, we are able to bring the power of all of these companies, some that you see as sponsors, but the power of the entire national network of consumer product companies that can bring expertise to bear on the issue.
“As we move through best practices, then the other services, and other entities of the food ecology on base, we will then take note, and what we want to do is to jumpstart that network to have these best practices brought to bear.”
Rossetti looks at the webinar series as a “once in a generation opportunity that we have here. When I look at the people that we have to speak to you at this series, they are the leading experts in this business. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to get it right.
“ALA is committed to herd all the cats in the right direction, we are all about making sure that this program and these food programs realize their full potential in contributing to the war-fighting capability of the Department of Defense, and the readiness of the troops and retention and recruiting problems, addressing all the fitness issues with keeping a ready force able to defend the nation.”
SPEAKERS
The following are the speakers of the first foodservice webinar, the topics they spoke about, and some random quotes that they made to attendees
Glenn Garrison, director of Morale, Welfare and Recreation and Resale Policy
Topics discussed by Garrison included:
- Value of MWR and Resale at Home Station and Deployed: provide responsive policy development and program management oversight enhancing force resiliency, readiness and the well-being of warfighters their families, survivors and other eligible members of the military community.
Military life and missions present unique challenges that affect the morale and overall well-being of units, families and individual service members. These stressors can undermine readiness, relationships and resilience, underscoring the critical need for targeted support programs and initiatives that improve combat lethality.
Credible research highlights how MWR and resale programs effectively address military community well-being, offering proven solutions that enhance the readiness, resilience and retention of war fighters and their families.
- Size and Scope: military resale exchanges provide quality retail goods at a savings, and generate dividends to support MWR.
Commissaries enhance the well-being and readiness of war fighters and their families by providing grocery and household items at significant savings as a vital part of the military compensation package, and is consistently rated as one of the top non-pay compensation benefits.
- MWR and Resale Beneficiaries: at total of 25.9 million people are considered to be beneficiaries, made up of honorably discharged war fighters (11.8 million); disabled/purple heart/POW war fighters (4.2 million); active duty war fighters and family members (3 million); retired war fighters and family members (2.4 million); guard and reserve war fighters and family members (2.1 million); DoD civilians (1.9 million); and retired DoD civilians (1.9 million)
All are covered by MWR and the exchange, with retired DoD civilians have online privileges.
- Food challenges include: food security among service members; nutrition standards and implementation; access to nutritious food; challenges in stakeholder coordination and policy integration.
- The Food Challenge: develop a comprehensive and strategic food master plan for each installation, endorsed by the commander and approved at higher headquarters.
To build that plan, align foodservice capabilities with actual demand, and to combine these elements into a comprehensive, unified and coordinated strategic foodservice delivery master plan tailored to meet mission-specific food requirements.
“Grabbing a burrito or a Coke is not always the right answer. There has to be another way to ensure that food is built into training and exercises, and making sure those NCOs and younger officers do not forget about including food in their exercises.
“They call up DoorDash and have food delivered off the installation, because there is nothing open or available when their exercise is concluding.
“This is the biggest challenge up here at OSD. We have a food policy that comes out from multiple different offices; you have personal and readiness, you have our office, MWR and Resale Policy, and Health and Fairness, and they are also very interested in the nutritious piece … it is a very valid approach and very important, as is our approach.
“Non-appropriated food is approximately 80 percent of food on any given military installation, so when you look to solve a problem and you look at a total force solution, a total capability solution, whether you are going campus style or any type of deviation from that, oftentimes the solution won’t be going through non-appropriated food, the exchanges and MWR. …
“We have to look at the needs of the warfighters out there. The needs of an Airman are very different from the needs of a Marine, a Soldier and so on.
“So we have to look at the installation, the fighting platform, the ship, and the installation and its mission, and tie food to the mission.
“This is all proposed, it could morph into 20 different directions, but it is a starting point.
“Our mission is to provide nutritious, flavorful meals within the installations’ specific program requirements, and needs and desires of the service members, because even among the services, installations’ missions are different, their training is different, their operations are different.
“We want to make sure that that food program is adaptive, and we also want to be — and this is our vision — the patrons’ first choice for the highest quality food, affordable and accessible through the options.
“So what can we do at OSD? We want to make sure that we have good policy out there, that assists in the planning of an installation’s food capabilities … what kind of partnerships are out there, demographics.
“What about 4:30 in the morning, where are those gaps on the installations, and identify what foodservice outlets are available on the installation that meet the needs of that installation.
“Our policy will direct each installation in a comprehensive food master plan that takes in all the planning factors, and aligns the actual foodservice capabilities with the demand with their mission, with the specific day part, and have a coordinated food delivery service master plan to meet the specific mission.
“We will pull in the subject matter experts from the departments and also the services, and even the folks on te front line, because we need to listen to you; you are out there every day, and our commercial partners also have a lot of great insight.
“We want to make sure that at the end of the day, that we create policy that is not an impediment to the support and flexibility that each service mission, installation, ship … wherever our war fighters are, to deliver healthy, nutritious and available food where and when it is needed.”
Chuck Milam, retired from the Department of Defense (DoD) in 2018 after 38 years of federal service, serving as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Military Community and Family Policy and principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Military and Reserve Affairs. Currently is a consultant working on several quality-of-life initiatives related to the military.
Topics discussed by Milam included:
- DoD Food Transformation: the need for transformation includes that dining facility utilization is extremely low; obesity rates are climbing; high cost for dining facility operations and facilities.
- History of DoD Food Transformation (2008-present) includes: Healthy Base Initiative (2012-2015); Smart Fueling Initiative (2015-2019); Healthy Army Communities (2016-2019); USAFA Campus Dining (2018-2019); and Army Campus Dining (2018-2019).
- DoD Foodservice Transformation Priorities include: increasing meal cardholder usage; manage escalating costs; provide more foodservice venues and options, such as campus dining; place heavy focus on performance feeding and encouraging smart eating; greater culinary innovation; tech innovations to save time and improve dining experience; collaboration with all food stakeholders.
Solutions leading to a modern dining ecosystem include: creative campus dining initiatives; robust marketing and customer engagement; mission and customer focus; innovative foodservice and technology initiatives.
“This is pretty much a recruiting, retention and readiness issue … we have had many service members who were not able to deploy because they had medical issues [due to obesity issues]. … It is the most fundamental need of a human being, We invested a lot of money into fitness programs, and there has been tremendous progress among the services, and the exchanges and the commissaries. Everyone has rallied to make improvements in the DoD.
“But we need transformation. The only way we are going to get to this is to have major transformation with our food initiatives. …
“We bring these people in. They struggle with their weight. They struggle with their fitness. We get them through boot camp, and then we ship them off to their first assignments, and in some cases, they don’t have a lot of healthy food choices.
“They have their fitness center. They can go there and work out all day. But we found that with the Healthy Base Initiative, we have bases out there where young men and women are eating meals out of vending machines. That is their actual meal. The DFACs have closed, the exchange may be closed at the time, the commissary is closed, and all that is available is a vending machine.
“There are a lot of cases of that, and that should not be the case.
“Young men and women in college should not have better food than our service men and women. Those service men and women that we deploy to tough locations are carrying 80 to 90 pounds on their back. In this environment, we should have the very best food programs, not just in the dining facilities, but also outside of the dining facilities.
“”We do have to increase meal card utilization rates. We cannot continue to go down the path were there are a couple of cardholders at a dining facility that is costing us millions to operate.
“Do we need a DFAC at every single location? I don’t know. I do know that we need an assessment, a determination, of how much food we should have, and that includes everything, commissaries, exchanges, MWR, dining facilities.
“If we are all community planners, if we were to develop a community where we have the food that we have on military installations today … we definitely need to assess what we have. We have had some things in place for 60-plus years, and I’m not sure that we still need that.
“So we need to assess a kind of baseline to figure out how much food we really need. We do need to look at the escalating costs that we have, because we can’t go to Congress, we can’t talk to this administration and say it is $25 to $45 per plate to feed a service member, when a college is about $7 per meal.
“We do need to focus on healthy performance food. Obviously, innovation is the key here. There are many opportunities to bring innovation to our system. We have to invest in it. We have invested heavily in fitness and all of these other programs, and we have to invest in technology. We have to use technology.
“And for all of our stakeholders out there, we have to work together, basically to modernize the campus dining model. We should have at least the equivalent of what colleges and universities have today, and it isn’t just the dining facilities, it is everything outside.
“What I would love to see … we are going to need help outside of the department. I appreciate writing policy in the DoD, that policy is good … but personally I think we do need legislation to outline at lot of these priorities and objectives that we do have to ensure that it is codified. Even after this secretary of defense leaves, and there are two or three or four more secretaries of defense, we have an enduring policy on food.
“Like a person on campus, you have to have a person in charge of food. That is critically important.
“We have tested, and we have proven, that a college campus-like dining operation is effective. It’s been in use in the colleges and universities across the United States for decades. They transferred into the models they have today 40-something years ago. That is a model that we should take a hard look at.
“We bring new recruits in, we have to get them ready, we have to feed them. We invest heavily in infrastructure, weapon systems, but we have to invest in our food structure. It is the most fundamental need with any human being, and we have to start with food.”
Ed Lee, Deloitte Restaurant Strategy lead
Topics discussed by Lee included:
- Common issues in restaurants and food service include: radical transformation of the consumer, a varied mosaic driven by demographic shifts; pressure to accelerate tech and artificial intelligence (AI) investments; the push for more convenience; operational complexity; eroding restaurant economics; rising environmental threats.
- Restaurant imperatives: to overcome the issues and drive future performance, restaurants should consider unlocking new growth horizons (new formats, innovative concepts); elevate experience and connection (improve brand strength, reimagining market channels); unleash breakthrough efficiency (predictive monitoring and operations, advanced forecasting); empower the future ready workforce (technology integration and human skills, culture of continuous growth); and serve up a sustainable future (value chain optimization, sustainability as market position).
- Future of the restaurant industry: new and varied formats and venues; menu innovation; digital customer experience; special events; intelligent use of AI and automation; reduced energy usage and waste; improve the experience of foodservice personnel, including reducing turnover; improved overall management of facilities across the installation.
“What is happening outside the gate? I want to bring the outside in. The commercial and restaurant foodservice spaces are facing a lot of the same challenges [as military food service is]. There are things that you should be on the lookout for. …
“The pace of change is dramatic in the restaurant space. For you, there are several things that might provide inspiration. That is not saying that what is happening on your bases is exactly the same as what is happening in the commercial world, but some of the actions taken in the commercial world might provide inspiration for you.
“One of them is very formatted venues. I know that that is being tried in some places, in kiosks and other things. How do we ensure that we are meeting the service members where they are? We need to understand what the roles are and what the work is on an installation, or each part of an installation, so that we are meeting them where they are and serving them what they need to have.
“Non-traditional locations, non-traditional formats are something the restaurant companies are pushing, and there could be an opportunity here.
“Variety is an important factor, whether that is bringing in food trucks, or pop-up restaurants … . Accessibility … there is huge pressure on expanding menus, and a lot of our restaurant companies that are out there are feeling that pressure. On one hand, you want a narrow menu, but on the other hand, there is a lot of pressure to offer variety. Getting that balance right is super important.
“More choices, more options, given the mosaic of service members. And getting items that they can only get from you, so that you are incentivized to go to the installation foodservice location as opposed to going to a third party.
“Delivery options … having food brought to you rather than having you going across the installation to get your meal, and then you have rewards, whether that is through a loyalty program or some other name for it, thinking about rewards that incentivized usage.
“Special events at the various installation locations could be another way to incentivized a community around a foodservice option on an installation. …
“So in general, I think there are a lot of pressures out there that are very similar to what you are facing. Restaurant companies are taking action, and some of these actions that are being taken can act as inspiration for you.”
CLOSING REMARKS
“As we navigate through this process, we are going to be highlighting acquisition channels, and the more companies that participate the better, because it brings more new products to the forefront,” Rossetti noted. “We will be putting out acquisition information on all of the entities.
“We have a great opportunity with all of the collective expertise that we will bringing to this series of webinars to really do something wonderful for the troops. We are very excited about that here at ALA.
“We look forward to working with our government partners to make that vision a reality, and we look forward to the next event on May 7.”
