All-day grab and go stations in 2026
Convenient and healthy
Gulfport, Kitsap-Bangor early sites
Expands meal card entitlement
The U.S. Navy is in the process of expanding the amount of grab-and-go food stations at shore-based installations and implementing changes that will make those options accessible all day.
Vice Adm. Scott Gray, commander of Navy Installations Command, announced the development during a media roundtable Wednesday, in which he discussed the service’s recently announced food service transformation initiative, the Military Times reports.
In 2025, there were few grab-and-go options across all shore-based galleys, Gray said.
By the end of June 2026, there will be a grab-and-go stations at 95% of all shore-based galleys.
The Navy is also planning to maximize the amount of time those grab-and-go stations are open by the end of the year.
Right now, galleys operate so that they only offer food during breakfast, lunch and dinner time.
In between those hours, sailors are unable to access food there.
But by the end of 2026, grab-and-go stations will operate from the minute the galley opens to the minute it closes to ensure that sailors always have a meal option that accommodates their busy schedule.
“If you come in, for example, at breakfast time and you have your breakfast and you know you’re not going to be able to come back and have lunch, you can then swipe your card before you go and take a sandwich, a salad and a protein drink with you, so that you can eat,” Gray said.
The service launched its shore food service transformation initiative on May 29 at Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport, Mississippi, and on June 3 at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Washington, with the goal of expanding its reach to other installations if the implementation proves successful.
The Navy intends to begin phase two of the rollout between March and July 2027 and expand the initiative to another nine installations.
The food shore initiative, aside from the expanded meal entitlement program, will offer multiple food stations within the galley, including international
cuisine, a vegan station, a Mongolian barbecue station, pizza stations, a deli station and a salad bar, among others.
The Navy is also attempting to boost the quality of food and service, having recently brought members from the Culinary Institute of America to both pilot program sites to train cooks.
Meal cards arrive
Gray also provided more information about the expanded meal entitlement options for sailors that the Navy Systems Command announced last week.
The service is testing a pilot program where sailors can swipe their meal cards at restaurants on base — with the intent of one day moving to chain restaurants.
The Navy wants enlisted sailors to be able to use their meal cards at restaurants on base.
The service is currently testing a pilot program at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Washington, where sailors can swipe their meal cards at Navy-branded food spots like Bombers Fresh Mex, which is the “equivalent of a Chipotle,” Admiral Gray said.
The hope is that this program could eventually expand to allow sailors to use their meal entitlements at chain restaurants on post.
“If the Navy Exchange contracts with McDonald’s on the base or with a Panera Bread on the base, or whatever that is, they can take their card and their meal allowance is, let’s say it’s $17 for dinner, they can go and they can order their dinner,” Gray said.
A Navy official said the goal of expanding the program to chain restaurants is still in development, with the current priority being an expansion of its pilot initiative to 10 galleys per year, after a review period. Currently, enlisted sailors living on post get meal entitlements that cover three meals at the galleys. These entitlements are deducted automatically from their pay. If they miss a meal or go off post to eat, that money is simply gone, as if it “evaporated,” Gray explained. Under the current meal allowance plan, sailors don’t necessarily know how much money they have
per meal since they swipe to enter the galley, eat, and then leave, Task and Purpose reports.
But with the new system that Navy officials hope to implement, sailors will have to budget their meal entitlements based on prices at food spots outside of the galley.
“[The sailor] doesn’t know how much it costs him or what the justification is for, and he just goes and swipes his card and gets what he wants to eat,” Gray said. “As you expand options to other venues, and there’s a fixed amount of entitlement that you can carry over to that, then they want to understand, ‘OK, I’m going to Bomber’s and my favorite burrito is $14.50 and I wanna get a drink and so the total is $17.’ And then he wants to know, ‘Is my entitlement gonna cover it?’ Or ‘[If] it’s not gonna cover it, am I willing to pay a dollar more to get what I want?’”
The pilot program is part of a slew of initiatives inspired by college campuses across the military. The goal, according to Gray, is to give troops more options for what they eat, when and where. “When my son went to college, I bought him a meal plan and they could eat in the cafeteria or equivalent and they had a certain amount of funds set aside in their allowance to be able to go to Starbucks or Panera or whatever those participating organizations were,” Gray said. “We want to expand choice.”
The Navy is also increasing the hours its grab-and-go kiosks are open, and plans to revamp its galleys to offer more options, from international cuisine to vegan dishes. On Friday, the Navy opened an upgraded galley at Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport, Mississippi.
The hope, officials said, is to encourage junior enlisted sailors to eat on base instead of spending money off post.
“I don’t know if you Uber-Eated McDonald’s recently, but a McDonald’s meal will cost you $12 and then the fee to get it to you and maybe another $15 if you do that. Three times a day, that’s a lot of money for a young person, and so we want to make our expanded options attractive to our sailors so that they use it,” Gray said. “We’re looking to ensure that our utilization rate goes up and then the sailors are taking better advantage of their entitlement because it’s a significant portion of their compensation, and when they’re not using it, they’re not helping themselves financially.”
The Navy anticipates rolling out new programs to nine bases in 2027. To transform the Navy’s entire enterprise food, Gray estimated it could take 18 to 24 months, or longer after lessons learned from the pilots.
