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MILITARY CULINARY AWARDS

Culinary Specialists May Have

The Recipe for a Dining Facility

Design Drafted During Training Could Built at JB McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst

ulinary teams from all branches of the U.S. military have
trained hard to perform well in evaluations completed The dining facil-
ity design challenge
C in recent months to determine which are honored with culminates on Sunday
awards for excellence in food service operations. when each team pres-
Awards are presented annually to winning teams that ents its final plan to
a panel of industry
have been selected by judges comprising representatives of judges who select
the National Restaurant Association Educational Founda- the winner.
tion (NRAEF) along with senior military personnel who
travel worldwide to visit installations and evaluate food (NRA) Restaurant,
service performance. Hotel-Motel Show
Winners are recognized and receive trophies at the 2018, which is
NRAEF Military Food Service Awards Dinner, which this May 19 to 22 at McCormick Place in Chicago.
year is 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, May 18, at the Hyatt Two days of the training program take place at Kendall
Regency in Chicago, Ill. College in Chicago, where participants attend seminars,
More than just being honored, winning team members work on the dining facility design project and present
are put to the test again in a three-day culinary training the team plans to judges, who select a winner. As part
program. They are asked to design a dining facility from of the training program, participants spend a day at the
scratch, including drafting a business-marketing/competition NRA Show to visit with selected exhibitors and sit in on
plan, staffing and healthy eating menu. Each team tackles educational sessions. At the end of the training program,
the project by assigning specific tasks to small workgroups they also earn a certificate of completion.
that each contributes pieces forming the entire plan. Training at Kendall College kicks off at 8 a.m. on Friday,
This year, the task is to propose the design of an “ideal” May 18, with welcome remarks by Chief Master Sgt. Ed
military dining facility for implementation at Joint Base Walden, USAF. The rest of the morning is devoted to different
McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. In prior years, the training seminar topics, including “Putting Health on the Menu,”
was an academic exercise where each team’s design could “Customer Service Fundamentals and Aspects of Quality
be implemented. Service,” “How to Develop a Restaurant Concept,” “How
Congress has chosen Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst as to Market Your Restaurant,” and “Equipment and Design.”
the location to place six new concept-driven dining facilities. Seminar training continues in the afternoon until 3
The infrastructure and construction costs will be determined p.m., when the dining facility design project overview
once concept and menu design has been approved. begins, followed by the participants being divided into five
main groups of 20 to 25 each to work on the challenge.
NRA SHOW 2018 Each main group subdivides into four smaller teams to
The culinary training program and awards dinner are work on specific aspects of the plan.
in conjunction with the National Restaurant Association’s Teams return to work Saturday morning from 8 a.m. to
11:30 a.m., and then depart for the
NRA Show to spend the rest of the
day visiting with selected vendors.
The list includes Butterball, Cambro,
Ecolab, Fontanini, Hormel, ITW/Ho-
bart, Comp Nutrition, Rose Packing,
Sysco and the Culinary Institute of
America (CIA).

PLAN PRESEN-
The NRA Show an- TATIONS
nually attracts more
than 66,000 at- On Sunday,
tendees from all 50 teams return to
states and 100-plus Kendall College
countries.
at 8 a.m. for a
26 GOVERNMENT FOOD SERVICE • MAY 2018