MoD's central food supply
Case Study: MoD Central Food Supply ContractRegion: National/international
Organisation: Ministry of Defence (MOD) - Defence Catering Group, now known as the Food Services Integrated Project Team (DFS IPT)
Description:
Food supply to the MoD non-Pay As You Dine units is valued at about £160M per annum, but this figure will reduce as units move to Pay As You Dine. UK distribution covers approximately 900 drop points delivering frozen, fresh and ambient products 5 days per week in mainland UK and Germany as well as to our Armed Forces on operations and exercises around the world. Chefs receive approximately £1.50 per person to provide 3 meals per day, so value for money is of critical importance.
The MoD's central food supply contract is currently held by Purple Foodservice Solutions (PFS), which operates 2 dedicated warehouses in the UK at Petersfield and Dundonald and supplies the Supreme Foodservice depot at Rheine (Germany). The contract is "open book", which ensures honest and open dialogue to the benefit of both parties.
A Core Price List is maintained listing contract prices for a range of over 1400 items available at 48 hours notice. In addition, the PFS Larder of national food and sundry items is available at 5 days notice. A range of items on the Core Price List is selected at Food Selection Panels (FSP), which are held monthly on military bases. Personnel from the host bases are invited to take part in the organoleptical assessment of selected products, ensuring the end users have a say in the content of the product list. A standing committee chaired by DFS IPT, comprising a member of the catering specialisation from each of the 3 Services (Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force), a dietician, a Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association representative and civil servants discuss the results of the FSP before selecting products for the Core Price List. In this way, value for money can be properly balanced against quality. It also affords the opportunity to ensure sustainable food is fully considered, as well as organic and fair trade goods.
Benefits:
- Dedicated staff with day-to-day contact on food supply issues.
- Dedicated warehousing and distribution.
- Central control ensuring the best affordable quality is available and full control is exercised over the product range.
- Maximises commercial buying power of a large organisation such as the MoD combined with the buying expertise of PFS.
- Harmonises the quality of product and service delivery to all military bases.
- Provides a single point of contact for customers.
- Facilitates the application of a range of commercial tools including customer/supplier relationship management, incentive pricing, gain-share, benchmarking and open-book accountability.
- Minimises the number of food related deliveries to military bases.
Lessons learned during implementation:
- Employing dedicated staff ensures that a rapport is built up between the distributor and the customer. The distributor understands the needs of the customer in a way which cannot be developed across a range of individual suppliers.
- By retaining control over the product list and closely monitoring product specification, quality is consistent. The FSP is also able to ensure a full range of healthy options is available and it exercises control over items such as genetically modified (GM) ingredients, salt, fat and allergens. As far as can be determined, no product supplied through the Core Price List contains GM ingredients. This is to relieve the chefs of the need to declare GM ingredients in their menus
- Through the FSPs, the MoD is able to ensure that suppliers are treated fairly and that UK sourced products are considered whenever they are competitive. Furthermore, sustainable food, organic and fair trade goods can also be considered.
Further Information:
Email: info@feedingtheforces.com
See www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/MicroSite/DES/OurTeams/Joint/DefenceFoodServicesIpt.htm
Page published: 9 May 2007