US Army considering privatizing dining facility operations
The Army is considering a plan that would relieve Army culinary specialists of their duties related to dining facilities. Soldiers will still have food preparation responsibilities via feeding troops in the field. Army officials are basing their meal plan concept on what is found on college campuses. They are hoping that competing options available to Soldiers will help improve food quality.
From Association of the United States Army (AUSA):
The shift, part of the Army’s Food Program Strategy, is intended to improve quality of life for these soldiers, who run garrison dining facilities 365 days a year while still maintaining their proficiency in field feeding, said Sydney Smith, director of supply policy and programs in the office of the deputy Army chief of staff for logistics, G-4. The change will give culinary specialists more time to improve their soldiering skills and focus on their primary mission of feeding troops in the field, whether during training or while deployed.
Responsibility for operating installation dining facilities will eventually shift to contracted companies that will have to compete for soldiers’ business with other dining options across installations. This “campus dining model,” developed in part by learning lessons from college campuses, would include alternatives such as grab-and-go kiosks, food trucks and take-out options.
Speaking during a Warriors Corner presentation, Smith linked the food transformation efforts to the Army’s wider focus on holistic health and fitness, calling food “one of the cornerstones of the Army fitness program.” She said the changes to garrison food service will “increase food accessibility, provide flexible food options and improve the Army dining facility experience,” which she said has remained largely unchanged since the 1950s.
Col. Adam Seibel, troop support division chief on the Army Food Transformation team in the Army G-4, said the service believes this increased competition will lead to sustained quality in the food served in traditional dining facilities.
Additional Reading:
McCuin, T. (2024, October 21). Army to privatize garrison dining. AUSA. Link.
yeah, I don’t see KBR swooping in and monopolizing this on the big bases and leaving the smaller out of the way posts to some local low bidder who can’t deliver because they pay their revolving door employees minimum wage and skimp on the food.
They should just outsource the whole shebang to Golden Corral. It’s basically already that anyway and it will be way cheaper than KBR.
Oh, jeez, just lived through that sh*t at summer training… worst cluster-f*ck feeding us ever, no-bid contract, UGR-As in the chowhall, possible “migrant” labor (contractor attests they’re all legal and not bad people, you know).
We all saw how privatizing housing went 🙄
Aaaaand how do your Army cooks get proficient at their chosen MOS? Are we gonna have them cooking meals and then pitching them? Nothing about this makes sense logistically. I could understand this plan on a training installation that has no cooks assigned organically (Huachuca is an example, there are zero Army cooks after 11th SIG pulled up stakes).