New AF dining program offers greater variety, availability

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Gina Vaccaro McKeen
  • Air Force Personnel Center Public Affairs
RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  Airmen at six bases including Travis may soon see changes to their dining venues and food and beverage options bringing greater quality and variety, Air Force services officials said recently.

The pilot program of the Air Force Services Agency's Food Transformation Initiative is gearing up to bring a new way of dining on Air Force bases around the U.S.

With FTI, the Air Force is changing the way it delivers food in order to meet the needs of today's Airmen. For the past 60 years, the Air Force has fed Airmen based on a much larger, more stationary force. With the transition to a smaller, expeditionary force, Air Force leaders are looking to make dining programs more flexible, available and efficient.

"FTI is about Airmen and for Airmen," said Brian Floyd, the deputy director of the 60th Force Support Squadron, one of the pilot bases for this initiative. "We have heard loud and clear what our Airmen want and FTI is all about offering them better quality food, more variety and a sense of community when dining."

The Air Force will hire a contractor to transition to "hybrid" facilities on bases through the FTI process as a means to reinvigorate Air Force dining. All members of the base community, much like common business and university campuses, can attend these facilities, services officials said.

Many base dining facilities have utilization rates of less than 50 percent. In lieu of closing these facilities, Air Force plans call for transforming operations. This transformation will preserve the services mission to provide meals to Airmen and will bring positive changes to the way Airmen are fed on base, services officials said.

"The changes will be tremendous," Mr. Floyd said. "Airmen will have great choices of where to eat ... and will have better quality and better variety -- just what they have been asking for."

The five Air Force bases participating in the pilot of this initiative in addition to Travis are Elmendorf AFB, Alaska; Patrick AFB, Fla.; MacDill AFB, Fla.; Fairchild AFB, Wash.; and Little Rock AFB, Ark.
The first phase of the program is about improving menu options, but total transformation will take time, services officials said.

FTI will open military food service establishments to all members of the base community, including civilian employees, family members, contractors and retirees. Diners will see an overall increase in the variety and availability of healthy menu options on base.

Airmen who are part of the Essential Station Messing program will continue to utilize the program for their daily meals. Currently, Airmen who are part of the ESM program are only authorized to eat at the base dining facility. Eventually, services officials hope these Airmen will be able to eat at all FSS dining venues on base under the ESM program.

"ESM participants will initially benefit from the increased dining options at the transformed dining facilities -- eventually they will benefit from the increased flexibility and variety at all the FSS dining venues on base," said Ed Nunn Jr., the deputy of the 92nd Force Support Squadron at Fairchild.

The dining facility at Travis averages 24,397 ESM meals served each month, and serves between 900 and 1,015 customers daily. The numbers increase to approximately 1,600 customers on Reserve weekends.

At Travis, services officials found many of the base food facilities were competing against each other. FTI will give the customer different food offerings and experiences at each facility, Mr. Floyd said.

"Airmen today want variety and quality at a fair price," Mr. Floyd added. "By offering these Airmen more of a variety here on base, we can meet their changing lifestyles and keep up with their changes in tastes. We will be able to provide options and quality products Airmen will want to come back for."

The folks at Travis are very excited about the changes FTI will bring, Mr. Floyd said.
Since FTI is designed to be customer-driven, it will allow food operation staffs to focus specifically on Airmen's needs while also meeting the Air Force mission. Mr. Floyd also emphasized the importance services Airmen have in meeting the Air Force's mission.

"We couldn't be more excited or ready for this quality-of-life initiative to begin," Mr. Floyd said. "The more we can do to enhance the lives of our Airmen, the better they can do in meeting the mission, and this goes a long way toward improving everyone's quality of life."

60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs contributed to this story