Culinary soldiers prepare meal kits to sell as a to-go option in dining kiosks at Fort Carson, Colo. The base provides grab-and-go meals at kiosks instead of traditional dining facilities on the weekends. (Doniel B. Kennedy/4th Infantry Division Public Affairs)
Fort Carson’s new weekend grab-and-go food options for soldiers on meal cards hit record levels this month, causing leaders to renegotiate a commissary contract to stock some items, double the number of cooks making premade meals and increase the support and oversight of the kiosks, according to leaders at the Colorado Army base managing the food program.
Command Sgt. Maj. Alex Kupratty, senior enlisted leader for the 4th Infantry Division and Fort Carson, and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Amanda N. Hoxie, senior food adviser for the base, described the weekend as “incredible” record usage.
“We were unable to predict such a large spike in the preference of the [commissary-contracted] foods that the soldiers had chosen,” Kupratty said. “We’re now able to resupply on a daily basis, including the weekends. That is single-handedly helping significantly.”
In mid-February the division decided to close all dining facilities on weekends because usage had dropped to about 200 to 250 meals served to soldiers who live in the barracks and use a subsistence allowance. Instead, they began offering soldiers grab-and-go kiosks filled with commissary-stocked sandwiches, salads and snacks, as well as microwavable meals made in advance by Army cooks.
About four weeks into the change, kiosk sales were six times what they’d ever seen before, leaving empty refrigerator shelves ripe for criticism online.
Fort Carson is not alone in figuring out what soldiers want to eat. The Army is tasked with providing meals to enlisted soldiers with a subsistence allowance they either use or lose each month. Every installation is grappling with meeting the needs of a new generation of soldiers, who have different dining preferences than those of the past, said Gen. Charles Hamilton, commander of Army Materiel Command.
Further complicating the issue is the Army has reduced the number of cooks in units, and that every installation has a different mission, different population and different food options outside the gate, Hamilton said. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.
Materiel Command created a team of food experts last year to visit bases and gather feedback from soldiers and collect data on dining facility usage to help commanders develop a plan to better feed soldiers, which is how Fort Carson landed on the kiosks.
Running a kiosk takes only four to six cooks, whereas running a dining facility can take between 20 and 40, Hamilton said.
Some installations, including Fort Liberty, N.C., have switched the weekend schedule to offer one brunch window with a to-go dinner available in a kiosk, he said. At Fort Cavazos in Texas, the commander has created a bus route to get soldiers to dining facilities and utilized contractors to keep them open during deployments or training.
“We can [hire contractors] pretty quickly, which gives soldiers an option to go sit next to their battle buddy or buddies and have a meal and have conversations and get into that team cohesion part of the Army that we still want to have happen,” Hamilton said.
Three premade to-go meal options available in dining kiosks at Fort Carson, Colo. The base provides grab-and-go meals at kiosks instead of traditional dining facilities on the weekends. (U.S. Army)
Plans for more choice
Materiel Command also continues to work two options that have long been requested by soldiers: the ability to use their meal card at the commissary to buy and cook their own food as well as the ability to eat at restaurants already established on bases with the same meal card.
“I want to see the day, and I hope it’s not far away, where soldiers take their [ID card], and that soldier can go to the commissary, have a meal; they can go even to the Burger King and get the healthy meals with real chicken and maybe some fruit … or go to the kiosk, or even Panera Bread,” Hamilton said. “They want to eat, when they want to eat. They want to have a choice.”
A plan to convert dining facilities to mirror college campus-style cafeterias with chain restaurants contracting out operations is still on the table — just delayed, Hamilton said. It’s been caught in legal and legislative constraints, but he said they have the ear of Congress on the issue.
“We have not given up on that,” he said. “Some of those barriers are starting to come down. I really think that’s still a very strong possibility.”
In the meantime, base commanders must find creative solutions to entice soldiers into choosing the food the Army offers. At Fort Carson, Kupratty said there are 6,100 soldiers on meal cards with an allowance for three meals a day; serving 1,800 meals in a weekend broke a record.
Soldiers working routine weekend shifts known as staff duty, and weekend-assigned field officers are required to stop by the kiosks as part of their checks to make sure the refrigerators are stocked, Kupratty said. Those soldiers also know who to contact if there is an issue.
The Army is also working to make it easier for soldiers to send feedback and escalate through the chain of command when the kiosks are empty, Hamilton said.
So far, he said the record levels are holding steady, with 1,989 meals served March 15-17. That could have also been associated with a snowstorm, he said.
“It was a very unique situation,” Hoxie said. “It was a payday weekend so, typically, we will see a drastic decrease in the headcount. But we prepared as if it would be higher.”
Fort Cavazos, Texas, launched a bus route this year known as the Cavazos Connector to improve soldiers’ access to dining facilities and other points of interest. (Darren Cinatl/Fort Cavazos Public Affairs)
Improving access
Fort Cavazos last year struggled to keep dining facilities open during a particularly heavy round of training rotations and unit deployments. Soldiers without vehicles — a population the base said has increased over the years — found themselves with little access to dining facilities.
The base made two major changes in response. It converted two dining facilities to be operated fully by contractors and arranged with a local transit authority to operate buses to move soldiers around post known as the Cavazos Connector, said Jerry Stephens, Deputy to the Commander, 407th Army Field Support Brigade. Both began operating in some form in early February, and meal-card usage at dining facilities jumped from 94,000 meals served in January to 143,000 between Feb. 5 and March 12.
“We think part of that is definitely tied to the Cavazos Connector, and the ability to get to the dining facilities,” he said.
Anyone with a military ID card can use the bus system for free through a circular route that travels past main points of interest on the base.
Another option is to use an app that functions like ride-sharing within a certain zone. Anyone in a service zone can use the app to call the bus to wherever they are, and it can take them to anywhere else within that zone, either to a bus stop or to locations where the zones overlap. It operates in soldiers’ living and work areas, family housing neighborhoods, and medical, shopping and dining areas.
A soft opening began Feb. 5 with one bus and one zone for ride-sharing, and there were more than 2,000 riders in the first month, Stephens said. On March 2 the base opened all five ride-share zones and brought on board additional buses. It is estimated to cost about $4.2 million a year to operate, he said.
In the first week of full service there were more than 3,100 riders.
Fort Carson has a transportation system, so that’s not what was keeping soldiers out of dining facilities, Kupratty said. He argues it is not quality either.
Kupratty eats two meals each workday on post and said the grab-and-go meals at the kiosks are some of his favorites — particularly the southwest chicken bowl with black beans.
Those meal kits were selling out on weekends, so they’ve increased production from 250 available on the weekends to 1,000, Hoxie said.
After Fort Carson’s challenges, Hamilton said he hosted a call with all dining-facility program managers to make sure they had plans in place to avoid a similar situation.
“Sometimes you can’t see everything coming,” he said. “But their reaction to it was pretty darn good.”
