CONFERENCE WRAP-UP: Customer Conference Builds on Tradition
This year's Subsistence Worldwide Customer Conference and Food Show in Anaheim, Calif., continued a tradition begun in the late 1970s to improve the relationship between Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Troop Support and its customers.
Over 500 DLA customers from all military branches attended this year's conference, Aug. 16 - 17. Food vendors exhibiting in more than 250 booths at the food show on Aug. 17 plus government officials pushed the total attendance even higher.
“In our business, personal relationships have always produced better results,” said Navy Supply Corps Capt. Mike Hansen, director of subsistence at DLA Troop Support, to open the show. “This is a forum to address issues and concerns, and an opportunity to meet the point of contact/subject-matter expert in person.”
FOOD FOCUS: SOUP AND SANDWICHES —
Comfort Foods Soups and Sandwiches Have a Healthy Development in Army Feeding
Soups and sandwiches offer Army food service the perfect opportunity to take foods that already have a broad, somewhat nostalgic appeal among the troops — a mandatory consideration — and reformulate them in accordance with the branch's new (and evolving) nutritional standards.
There is a renewed focus on providing soldiers with products that are nutritionally balanced but still appealing in taste, said Cara Vartuli-Dusablon, chief, Concepts, Systems and Policy Division, Joint Culinary Center of Excellence (JCCoE).
“The Army is supporting the 2010 USDA [Department of Agriculture] Dietary Guidelines for Americans in several ways: procuring products with lower sodium amounts, such as soups; serving lean meats to include deli meats; serving lean ground beef and lean ground turkey (with a fat content not exceeding 10 percent); and offering whole grains, such as breads,” she explained.