A new pilot program is allowing some soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, to choose from more food options than is typical.
The Flexible Eating and Expanded Dining, or FEED, program, gives soldiers the option to use their meal entitlements outside of Army-operated facilities. It runs from Aug. 11 to Aug. 25 and involves 200 soldiers with the 61st Quartermaster Battalion, according to an Army release.
The program is an effort to provide dining options that fit the modern soldier’s eating habits, the service said.
“We’ve expected Soldiers in barracks to follow the same eating patterns that we have maintained for decades,” Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, Army Materiel Command deputy commanding general, said in the release. Mohan is responsible for the Army Food program.
“We’ve expected soldiers to figure it out. We were swinging behind the pitch and failing them. We are on the cusp of totally changing that.”
Mohan said today’s soldiers want flexible dining options, including being able to eat later than many of the facilities are open.
During the pilot, soldiers have a number of choices. Special menu items approved by food service experts and dietitians are available for purchase at restaurants such as Subway, Starbucks, Freshens, Qdoba and Burger King.
Soldiers in the pilot program will be able to purchase breakfast, lunch and dinner on a single visit, swiping their Common Access Card once for each meal type.
The FEED program is one of several initiatives the Army has created to support campus-style dining. Other options include installation dining, grab-and-go kiosks, food trucks and bistros, a growing meal prep program and a campus-style dining venue pilot that will change the existing dining facility model.
The pilot is testing functionality but will also give developers a look at soldier preferences, Rick Bennett, senior logistics management specialist for AMC’s Food Innovation and Transformation Division, said in the Army release.
“It’s about accessibility. If a soldier can’t make it to a dining facility, that soldier now has somewhere to go to get a meal without forfeiting their entitlements,” Bennett said.
“When soldiers pass up that benefit and that entitlement every single day, we fail them. We are changing that. It’s imperative that the Army gets this right. Our goal is to ensure that soldiers remain the best-sustained, best fed and fittest fighting force in the world.”
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
