[Cover Story] Feeding the Troops

“When I was a lance corporal, we had one meat, one starch, one vegetable and a choice of bread: white or nothing.” — Charles Cone

Charles Cone joined the Marine Corps in 1968, and worked with military food service until his retirement in 1996 as lieutenant colonel, head of food service and subsistence for the Corps. He continues to serve the Marines today as regional contracting representative for food service, based at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, N.C.

Although today’s Marine has a much more varied diet — whether on base or in the field — and suppliers of those foods have much more restrictive regulations to be met in food quality, safety and defense, the primary goal is still the same: “My sole purpose is to make sure that those Marines authorized to eat at government expense get to do so,” Cone said.

That authorization is part of the U.S. Code, which states that “an enlisted member of the (armed forces) on active duty is entitled to one ration daily,” with ration defined as a food allowance for the day. (Officers are not entitled to a ration but are authorized one.)

Cone’s responsibility covers the East Coast region of the Marine Corps, which means feeding the troops equates to about 12.3 million meals each year at a total expenditure of $72 million.

Twenty years ago, the items for such military meals were distributed from a half dozen food houses, said Tom Lydon, Chief of Strategic Materials Sourcing Group at the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP). Today, they are sourced from more than 40 distributors and 50 warehouses. While this is considered to be a strategic security measure — with greater distribution making the items less identifiable as military bound — it also can be seen as an indicator of an ever-growing opportunity for food processors.

What does it take to get your product served at one of these 12 million meals? To discover the process, specific regulations and requirements for military provisions, and check out military food first hand, QA magazine spoke with providers from manufacturer to mess hall and visited Camp Lejeune.

THE PROCESS. Before deciding to set out on the path toward supplying your product to the military, a manufacturer should take to heart the words of the U.S. Army Center of Excellence, Subsistence (ACES): “The process can be long and complicated and there are no guarantees.”

If it were a top-to-bottom (or bottom-to-top) process, it may be a bit less complicated. As it is, prospective military suppliers need to sell up but apply down. That is, while working the approval process from the top, the plant needs to be talking directly with the food-service facilities to build a relationship and market its product.

Before a base can purchase any food item, the vendor has to be approved by DSCP, be assigned to the National Allowance Pricing Agreement (NAPA) vendor listing, and have each item assigned a NAPA number. But Jeff Hayman, Koch Foods vice president, prepared sales, said “It’s a pull-through system,” with products distributed from DSCP based on requests by the bases. So, Hayman said, “the NAPA number is really just a starting point.”

As explained in the document Doing Business with DSCP for the First Time, “In order to do business with DSCP you will need to register in the Central Contractor Registration database.” However, it continues, “any new item entering our system must be the result of an agreement between our suppliers and our customers.” In addition, “all sales of troop feeding food products are through a worldwide network of commercial distributors…it’s necessary to build a partnership with these distributors to sell your products, while marketing your goods to the Food Service Chiefs of Military Service.”

Processors shoud be aware, the document adds, that having a product in a distribution center or catalog does not mean it will be used by the military, explaining, “We use a commercial system, therefore, our customers have freedom of choice.”

Hayman’s recommendation is to sell up while you are applying down, but he adds that you can help yourself right from the start by doing some homework — and getting some assistance. “The easiest thing to do is before you ever go to DSCP, find a food service director at a base close to you,” Hayman said. “Make an appointment, asking, ‘I’d like an hour or two of your time to walk me through the process.’”

As with most sales processes, success is about building relationships — with the mess hall, with the base, with the prime vendor and understanding the customer, i.e., the military, its jargon, processes and systems. Large companies often employ military specialists for this area, while smaller companies can do well working through a military food broker. “For a small company breaking into the business, that’s the easiest way to do it,” Hayman said.

This is not to say, however, that a processor cannot go directly to DSCP to work the system. But be prepared; if you end up speaking with Lydon, you will be the one answering the questions. “Tell me about what you do,” Lydon said is his first question to potential suppliers. What is your product? Where do you want it sold? Who is the target audience? Is it retail or wholesale oriented? “I start zeroing them in on what area here is responsible for buying that product,” Lydon said. “I take whatever path the firm leads me down.”

Lydon then explains DSCP’s role as a military buyer or refers the company on to the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) if the item is a better fit for the base commissary, i.e., grocery store. While DSCP will buy some unique and perishable items directly, most foods are purchased through a partnership with prime vendors such as SYSCO and U.S. Foods.

RULES AND REGULATIONS. Probably the most important aspects of the military food supply chain are the product requirements specific to military provisions. As stated in a publication from ACES, referring to the general food service quality and nutritional standards of military menus, “if the product does not fit within these standards there is no need to go any further. Your product will not be purchased.”

Along with requirements on the process that a manufacturer must follow to even get its product into the chain of consideration, there are source, quality and safety requirements which are virtually non-negotiable.

“In a commercial account, the purchaser has the freedom to purchase almost any product from anywhere in the world if it is available,” explained Tina Reddington, senior manager of compliance, Sodexo Government Services. But when purchasing for the military, she said, “there are purchasing parameters dictated by government regulations that will dictate what can be purchased, from whom you can purchase, how it is purchased and from where the product originates.” And these regulations can literally determine what is on a menu and when the menu must be changed.

Some key federal requirements are:

• Federal Procurement List. According to the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act (JWOD) of 1971, Department of Defense (DOD) units can purchase certain items only from companies that employ blind or severely disabled persons and are a part of the JWOD program. So, if you produce one of the food items on the list, such as garlic, paprika, pancake mix and some types of cake mix, you could only sell it to the military if it were no longer available from a JWOD company or could not be attained in a timely manner. (A complete list is available at www.jwod.gov.) 
  
• Sanitarily Approved List. Before a food manufacturer can sell its product to the military it must pass a sanitary inspection enabling it to be listed in the Directory of Sanitarily Approved Food Establishments for Armed Forces Procurement. To request an inspection, the supplier writes a letter to the purchasing agency with which it wishes to conduct business, including complete location and contact information on the plant and authorized representative, a list of products to be furnished, and a list of federal, state and local regulatory agencies that currently inspect the facility.
  
• “Berry Amendment.” Officially U.S. Code, Chapter 148, Section 2533a, this regulation requires that any food (or various other products) purchased for the military must be “grown, reprocessed, reused or produced in the United States or its possessions.” The domestic source restriction was passed by Congress in 1941 to protect domestic industry in times of adversity and war. Seafood is placed under even greater restriction, as it must be taken from the sea in U.S. flagged vessels or caught in U.S. waters and be processed in the U.S. or on a U.S. flagged vessel.
  
  Although the provision can make it difficult at times to source product, it also provides added confidence in the quality of the product, Lydon said. Because American goods are subject to federal regulations and inspection, he explained, “We don’t have to worry about someone putting lead on something or not using very sanitary processes.”
  
  There are very few exceptions made to the code for products beyond those that are generally not produced in the U.S., such as coffee and many spices, and exceptions must be approved by Congress, Lydon said. In fact, if a product not completely U.S.-made accidentally gets into the system, he added, “we have to immediately take it out of our catalog.”
  
• Food Security. Force protection is defined by the military as an integrated program developed to protect military people, providers and resources in the event of attack against U.S. defense assets within or outside the U.S. The Force Protection Plan presents command guidance to deter, defend and react to possible threats or attacks through the planned integration of security, law enforcement and information operations supported by the synchronization of training, operations, intelligence, policy, procedures and resources. Every military supplier must have a Force Protection Program in place, including security procedures such as background checks on all employees, GPS tracking on supply trucks and documented resealing of the truck between every stop.
  
  In a high-threat condition, Cone explained, trucks may not be allowed to enter the base at all, but would have to be inspected and have products transported separately onto base. Although the base does run drills for extreme threat conditions, Cone said he has never had to implement a real one. “When you lock down a military installation, that’s extreme,” he said.
  
• Quality and Safety. In most cases, before a company will be awarded a contract to supply the military, it will need to provide documentation on its quality process both in terms of internal operations as well as specifications it requires of its suppliers, Lydon said. Products are subject to inspection at the distribution facility, with a goal that each item is inspected at least annually making sure it fits the item description, is in good condition, meets all quality requirements and is completely U.S. made. “Basically, they rip the items apart,” he said.
  
• Combat Rations. While all foods purchased for troop feeding are subject to nutritional standards, those purchased for combat feeding must meet very specific feeding directives set forth by U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center (commonly called Natick). This agency is responsible for combat rations for all the country’s armed services. 
  
  For example, the basic military meal, ready-to-eat (MRE) is used to “sustain individuals during operations that preclude organized food service facilities, but where resupply is established or planned.” As such, each meal contains an entrée/starch, crackers with a spread, a dessert or snack and beverages, along with accessories and utensils. The components are required to be lightweight, compact and easily opened with a shelf-life of at least three years at 80° F or six months at 100° F. In addition, the meals must meet strict nutritional standards.
  
  With Natick also responsible for research, testing and evaluation, the provisions are continuously undergoing product improvement, with 193 new items approved since 1993, and 75 percent of ration components now non-developmental or commercially modified items — providing food manufacturers with extensive opportunities.

INSPECTIONS. In addition to these federal restrictions, any food intended for military personnel and/or entering a military establishment is subject to more frequent and more in-depth inspection than even that to which the food industry is currently held. Even before a food arrives at the gate of a military base, it begins its trek through the military inspection system, which does not end until that food is on a military member’s plate or in family’s grocery bag.

Ana Sanders is chief of the DSCP Quality Audits & Food Defense Branch, and her quality auditors evaluate all documented food defense and force protection plans submitted by DSCP contractors. These auditors visit producers, assemblers, prime vendors and suppliers to determine implementation, compliance and effectiveness of the plans approved during the acquisition process.

“The commercial industry relies too much on their suppliers and most of them never visit their suppliers,” Sanders said. Many receive items that are never tested and don’t visit their suppliers’ facilities to ensure they are complying with expectations and standards. Rather, she said, they place their faith in the government regulatory agencies to do what should be primarily their job and responsibility.

Also, Sanders added, many suppliers expect the government regulatory agencies to do the testing and determine if the products are safe. But, she said, “we don’t take it for granted. It is our responsibility to ensure the products we buy and supply to our customers are not only safe and of the highest quality but that these products also meet the military requirements.”

IN THE MESS HALL. “Everything that comes in here has to be from an approved source,” said Military Inspector Sgt. Shatoia Grimsley. And once the item is in the galley (or kitchen), it is subject to individual and random inspection where the item is examined in its raw state — both frozen and thawed (as applicable), then in its cooked or final ready-to-serve state. Every item is assessed according to texture, color, smell and taste as specified by the applicable standard.

Each month,192 planned inspections are conducted at Camp Lejeune’s 13 mess halls, plus another eight random inspections each month. “Our requirements are a little more stringent” than those of a commercial restaurant, Cone explained. Where a restaurant may be inspected once a month, “we inspect ours at least once a week.” While a restaurant or affected customer may not agree with his assessment, this stringency is necessary because, he said, “You can afford to get five civilians sick. I can’t afford to get a regiment sick that might have to go off to duty.”

It is also in the mess hall that the Berry Amendment comes into play. “Everything served to the troops has be to made in America,” Grimsley said, or it will be rejected. One of the biggest problems they face in troop feeding are the items which are sent to the base by the regular distributors that, upon inspection, are found to have been produced overseas. The items cannot be accepted.

While the “buy American” idea certainly has its place, Cone said he has found the Berry Amendment sometimes causes problems among the troops. For example, he said, at one point he was having trouble purchasing domestic tomatoes, as they all originated in Mexico, but he had to keep up the search for U.S. made. “The Marines don’t care,” he said. “They want their tomatoes.”

The mess hall system does not simply feed the troops who come to a facility for meals, but also provides the field rations for members who are on day- or week-long exercises in the field. Camp Lejeune, for example, is 244 square miles encompassing varied terrain — woods, shoreline, swamp and city streets, and includes 11 miles of tactical beach and 98 maneuver areas where the Marines train for combat and humanitarian missions abroad. Feeding the Marines of this base can as challenging as being in an actual combat situation.

But while feeding the Marines on field exercises is a basic subsistence need, it also fulfills training purposes of its own, preparing food-service personnel for deployment situations themselves — training them in the use of field equipment and operational food preparation and ensuring that they maintain their field food-preparation skills, said Company Commander Lakendrick Wright.

Even in the mess halls, the transient nature of the military can be a challenge to the food-service team. For example, said Gunnery Sergeant Jason Outram, the mess hall forecasts its food needs a month in advance based on a master menu, then does the advance preparation needed for the expected number of troops. When there is an unexpected influx of Marines, and the mess hall runs out of a food that requires two to three hours of preparation, it can be quite a challenge to provide the same quality and item as that which is supposed to be served, particularly if the item is not packaged in such a way as to allow versatile use.

Packaging challenges can run both directions, however. Mess halls are not permitted to keep, reuse or give away leftover food, so if package quantity is too high, it can be difficult to pull only the needed amount. On the other hand, Outram said, if an item comes individually wrapped, there is more versatility in number, but it can take a great deal of extra labor to unwrap 1,000 individual packets.

MARINE CONTRACTOR. While some of the services run their own food operations, the Marines contract with Sodexo for food and facilities management for all troop feeding. “Sodexo’s role is to purchase and manage all food products for the USMC menus,” Reddington said. This means coordinating all menu planning with the Marines to include new menus, menu changes and product selection or availability.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the Marines themselves have no say in their menus, as the base food-service team meets regularly to discuss the food items and menus. At that time a participating Marine can recommend a product he or she had an opportunity to test — at a food show or conference or on-base product demonstration, and the item will be evaluated for compliance to all requirements and inclusion on the menu.

While the complex process, extensive restrictions and detailed regulations may appear to be off-putting for the food processor just starting down the long road, Lydon sees military food supply as an opportunity for most providers. “Pretty much any processor who processes food domestically has a shot at being involved in our program,” he said. “We are open to always having new suppliers.” QA

The author is Staff Editor of QA magazine. She can be reached at llupo@giemedia.com.

Editor’s Note: QA would like to extend best wishes and prayers for 1st Lt. Richard Ulsh, who, shortly after the author’s visit, received orders to Afghanistan, where he is now serving a seven-month tour. Our thanks and prayers are extended to all those who serve.

Camp Lejeune By the Numbers

• The 65-year-old camp is home base of “Expeditionary Forces in Readiness,” as well as the II Marine Expeditionary Force, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Logistics Group and other combat units and support commands.
  
• Its mission is to maintain combat-ready units for expeditionary deployment.
  
• A staple of the Jacksonville, N.C., economy, Camp Lejeune and its people generate nearly $3 billion in commerce each year.
  
• With a population of nearly 150,000 active duty, family, retiree and civilian employees in and around the base, the base itself includes:
• 156,000 acres of land
• 11 miles of beach capable of supporting amphibious operations
• 98 maneuver areas
• 34 gun positions
• 50 tactical landing zones
• 78 live fire ranges
• Urban Terrain Military Operations training facility 
  
• In addition, the base has childcare, shopping, education, hunting and fishing, dining, boating and swimming facilities, as well as banks, a commissary, library, hobby shops, fitness centers, the beach and a theater.
  
• Camp Lejeune has received a number of military awards. It is a five-time recipient of the Commander-in-Chief’s Award for Installation Excellence, which recognizes the base on a Department of Defense level for effectively managing assets and developing quality programs to accomplish its mission.
  
• For more information, visit www.lejeune.usmc.mil.

Online Business Resources

Supplying food for military consumption is subject to numerous policies, specific procedures, government regulations and aggressive requirements. Following are a few of the online resources that can help you gain an understanding of this complex process.  

• www.quartermaster.army.mil/aces/ — The full publication from the Army on supplying food for its people. To link to the document, select “Publications & Utilities” in the page header, then select “ACES guides: Doing business with the Army Food Program.”
  
• www.jwod.gov or www.abilityone.gov/jwod — The site includes information on JWOD, recently renamed Ability One. The program is administered by the independent federal agency Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled and was developed to provide employment opportunities for people who are disabled in the manufacture and delivery of products and services to the federal government.
  
• www.veterinaryservice.army.mil/food.html — The Army Veterinary Service is responsible for the safety and security of food and water supplied for military consumption. This Web site includes information about its mission and procedures and policies for suppliers.
  
• www.dscp.dla.mil — The Defense Supply Center Philadelphia is the “logistics partner to the warfighter,” providing supplies and services worldwide when and where needed. For information on working with DSCP, select “Subsistence” in the page header for complete information on food supply contracting or “Vendor Opportunities” in the right sidebar for documents on doing business with DSCP.
  
• www.militaryfood.org — Information on DSCP’s “Boot Camp” training on how to do business with the government. The conference is scheduled twice a year.
  
• www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/guidance.html and www.cfsan.fda.gov/%7Edms/guidance.html — FDA recommendations and guidance documents which should be implemented to the extent practical, including:
• “FDA Retail Food Stores and Food Service Establishments: Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance”
• “Food Producers, Processors, and Transporters: Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance” and
• “Importers and Filers: Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance”

The Base Commissary: Feeding the Families

The base commissary is the military’s equivalent of a full-line grocery store and is open to military members, retirees and dependents.

While foods coming into a base commissary are not subject to quite the rigidity of that going to the mess halls, i.e., these foods need not be completely U.S. made, but supplying the commissary is still more complex than supplying a local grocery chain. The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), which manages the military commissaries, requires that all foods to be sold are subject to inspection by the Army Veterinary Service, whether that be seasonal fruit from a local farmer or packaged items from a national manufacturer. “Grocery stores can buy from local farms that don’t have to be inspected by anyone,” said Camp Lejeune Commissary Store Administrator Danny Fisher.

The requirement also follows through for the ingredients of processed goods, with food safety and security requirements of all steps in the chain of goods as well as throughout its transportation. “Be very vigilant of what goes on in the farms,” Fisher said. “You have to know all the way down the line.”

During solicitation, suppliers will, in fact, be required to submit information regarding their product recall procedures, said Kevin Robinson, DeCA spokesman. “The traceability of a product from farm to the store is of great concern to all federal agencies. Contractors must explain their recall system and identify how often they test their procedures.”

It is important that a potential supplier understand the nature of the potential threats to the nations’ food supply, Robinson added. He recommends that food processors develop a security plan covering food defense emergencies, train employees and validate the plan through exercises and adjust the security plan as needed.

Depending on the commodity, the supplier may also be required to produce documentation regarding its quality assurance program, HACCP implementation and use of on-site inspectors, Robinson said. “For certain types of acquisitions, DeCA personnel will actually conduct on-site plant visits to gain firsthand knowledge about a potential supplier’s operations.”
And once that food arrives in the commissary, it is subject to daily in-store inspections by the health inspectors rather than the much less frequent inspections required of a commercial grocery store. “We are held to inspections on a daily basis where they might get inspected once a year,” Fisher explained. In fact, the base has full-time inspectors who spend about half their day in the commissary alone.

As described in DeCA’s Food Safety, Security and Sanitation brochure, the food undergoes a multi-tiered inspection process for safety:

1. All food sold in military commissaries comes from approved sources as authorized by FDA, USDA, USDC, European Union or the US Army Veterinary Command.
2. Daily inspections begin when the food arrives at the base and continue until it is purchased.
3. Medical food inspectors from the U.S. Army Veterinary Command and U.S. Air Force Public Health work in the commissary, generally maintaining an office on the commissary receiving floor. When food is received at the commissary or central distribution center dock, it's checked for temperature, sanitation and signs of tampering or other damage. When in storage or on display in the commissary, the food is continuously monitored to ensure proper temperature, sanitation and rotation is maintained.

One area Grimsley sees the most problems during inspection is that of packaging, particularly with meats, she said. Ineffective product sealing causes the product to lose its vacuum seal or start to cook on one side. And for all products, she said, “make sure the things you are sending are in correct date.” Commissaries require that all products have complete shelf-life data listed, with use by dates on all items.

“DeCA sets a strict standard of how many days a product can have on it,” Fisher said, and a commissary employee keeps a running check on the dates of all products, rotating shelf items to promote first-in, first-out purchase.
How is your item selected for the commissary shelf? It is based primarily on known or anticipated customer demand, according to DeCA. Brand-name products are selected according to such criteria as product quality, competitive pricing, availability, anticipated customer demand and commercial product movement data. For other items, DeCA commodity managers establish a requirement for the item — e.g., meat (beef, pork) dairy, cheese and eggs, then undertake a formal selection process based on a best value evaluation that considers areas such as past performance, price, delivery and patron savings.