When Robert Irvine wanted the Army’s top officials in charge of food and dining to understand his vision for future chow halls, he took them back to college.
Literally.
As a celebrity chef with a string of Food Network hits, Irvine has spent over a decade cooking for U.S. troops worldwide and helping veterans develop careers in the culinary industry through his Robert Irvine Foundation.
And he minces no words about how he sees the current state of Army dining.
“Why would you want to go to a dining facility and eat in one that looks like a prison?” Irvine told Task & Purpose. “Meaning in the way in which we scoop food out of hot tables.”
Recruited by Army officials last year as a consultant on reimagining the Army food system, he took the service’s senior culinary officials to Columbia University in New York City.
“Most collegiate feeding is done in stations, and it’s kind of sleek and sexy, and the food is good,” Irvine said. “Why? Because they’re paying for it, number one. So are our military folks. We get paid the same to feed a military soldier as we do as a teenager in a university. So there should be no difference in the offering.”
Columbia sits in the heart of New York City, where nearly every kind of food is available within a short walk. But even in that dense food market, the school’s cafeterias keep a 90% rate of students continuing to eat at its facilities after their first two years, when they are no longer required to eat there.
One of the Army officials — Col. Adam Seibel, the Headquarters, Department of the Army, Troop Support Division Chief, and Army Food Transformation — was impressed.
“After touring it, meeting with their business manager, their chefs, and eating there — I mean, it’s unreal,” Seibel said. “What this campus dining facility can do with multiple nodes, running upwards of 22 hours a day, for the cost that they procure and serve for, […] there’s no reason why the Army couldn’t do this.”
Irvine has been pitching the Army on using the college dining venue model and food truck-based menu options in its revamp of service dining halls.
A major benefit, Seibel said, “might be getting soldiers to eat more healthy.”
“Maybe they ate Big Macs twice a day. I don’t know, but we come from different backgrounds,” Irvine said. “Educating them in those first few weeks and then continuing it. It’s comparable to a child [growing up]. If you leave a child to their own devices long enough, they’ll create bad habits, and that’s what we don’t want.”
Irvine’s influence on the Army’s food service stretches back 18 months, though he’s been making 5-star meals for troops stateside and overseas for years. While the Army has tried to jump-start the process of improving its food services multiple times over the past decade, Irvine has jumped into looking at how Army 92G Culinary Specialists (cooks) acquire and make food and how it’s delivered.
“My whole passion is ‘How do I make ‘feeling better’ within the military sphere, across the joint force? I think when we talk about modernization, it’s a great word,” Irvine said. “I think we’ve modernized in certain areas across the joint force, meaning weapons, planes, and all those things. What we haven’t developed or moved forward on is the feeding platform.”
Irvine and his team have been assisting under a general services agreement, though Irvine said he is not personally getting paid for his contributions. Seibel said Irvine and his Chief Operating Officer, Justin Leonard, have been advising and assisting with the Army’s food transformation “every step of the way.”
The Army has spent the last few years pouring money and time into improving how soldiers eat. Pilot programs are underway, establishing new kiosks for quick food pickups at all hours. A recent contracting proposal calls for totally overhauling five current dining facilities into campus-style dining venues at Fort Liberty, North Carolina; Fort Stewart, Georgia; Fort Cavazos, Texas; Fort Drum, New York; and Fort Carson, Colorado.
‘Chewed out’ in the chow hall
Rob Evans, a former Army sergeant in the Reserve and National Guard, created an app called Hots&Cots to give junior enlisted troops a way to flag issues at military dining facilities and barracks.
One thing he hears constantly: junior troops avoid chow halls because they think senior soldiers consider dining halls to be “open season” to correct, chew out, and harass younger troops for uniform discrepancies, other small dress and appearance issues, or even just for their own amusement.
“I understand, and many others understand, soldiering is a 24-hour job. But they just want to eat and not have to worry about what’s going on, like, who’s gonna mess with them, what type of shenanigans will get thrown at them,” Evans told Task & Purpose. “They just want to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, or whatever. That stigma and concern of eating at dining facilities exists, and they avoid it for that.”
Seibel said the Army recognizes the issue, and Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer have held several meetings with leadership throughout the Army to address that cultural issue.
“We could paint the walls. We could put in TVs. We can do everything in the world to make it look like a civilian restaurant, or what have you,” Seibel said. “We could even have it fully civilian-run. But if we still ‘over army it,’ that won’t solve the problem that we’re trying to solve.”
Other complaints include the kiosks running empty before soldiers can get there and inconsistent quality and portions of food out of dining facilities. So much so that
The issues with dining facilities’ quality, portions, and sheer lack of food are well understood. Irvine pointed out that the initial training Army cooks receive is not enough to teach them how to run a restaurant effectively, let alone a dining facility that feeds hundreds to thousands of soldiers in a day. Seibel said the lack of training can lead to fluctuations in the quality and availability of food in dining facilities.
He said he’d heard of one recent example of Army cooks tearing open hundreds of sugar packets to make a cake because they didn’t have bulk sugar on hand. Seibel said it’s a rare occurrence when something like that happens, but it is something they can and will fix.
“So I think what Chef Irvine did to us is kind of said, ‘Hey, see yourselves a little bit better. Manage it a little bit better, like you don’t need a Cheesecake Factory menu for ordering. Maybe you need a food truck menu for ordering. Instead of 8,000 items, maybe you need to order 800 items. It makes it easier on your internal management, so you don’t run into something like running out of sugar, ketchup, or what have you.”
Another issue is a consistent product, from meal to meal.
“I think part of why they want unhealthy foods and eat at fast food restaurants is that the Army gave them that option,” Evans said. “The food they get from these fast food restaurants, like Burger King, will be consistent. It’s always going to be the same.”
“I think if the military can fix the issue of getting food that’s going to be consistent, your portions are going to be consistent, the taste is going to be consistent, I think they’ll be able to draw the service members back into eating there,” Evans said. “I don’t know many soldiers who want to go and eat and spend their own money to eat good food. So I think the Army and all other branches must fix that.”
Food as a ‘platform’
Irvine compared soldiers and their diet to a new Mercedes sports car with a quarter tank of fuel: it won’t go far. If it’s not the lack of food, the bad quality of food is comparable to putting diesel in a gas-powered car.
“Unless I put into you what I need you to have to be able to do your job, I’m not going to get much out of you because the body will eventually break down,” Irvine said. “So, for me, food and nutrition are the key component and platform for any fighting force, no matter if it’s our country or somebody else’s. So what we put into our bodies is what we get out of it.”
Irvine has helped the Army vary the menu options to simplify ordering and provide options to help soldiers of all builds and body types get the nutrients they need. Though they are working to provide healthier options, it won’t result in mundane meals.
“I’m not asking them to eat like rabbits,” Irvine said. “I’m not, but you will see the difference when they eat what they should eat. We make fried chicken, but it’s sous vide, air-fried, and better than any deep-fried chicken sandwich you’ll ever have in your life.”
Evans pointed to an echoed concern from soldiers throughout the Army: while the spotlight is on the dining facilities, the food and delivery of it is improving. But will that continue when the spotlight is off of them? Only time will tell.
“The military is a people business. Planes don’t fly themselves. Boats don’t drive themselves, and tanks don’t shoot themselves without people,” Irvine said. “So, my number one priority in my life is that every man and woman in the family who wear that cloth and those standing behind them, it’s our job to make sure that we do the right thing.”
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