<FONT color=blue>[Online Extra]:</FONT> The Base Commissary: Feeding the Families

Editor's Note: You can find more coverage of QA magazine's visit to Camp Lejeune, N.C., and learn how food manufacturers work with the U.S. military here.

The base commissary is the military’s equivalent of a full-line grocery store and is open to military members, retirees and dependents.

While foods coming into a base commissary are not subject to quite the rigidity of that going to the mess halls, i.e., these foods need not be completely U.S. made, but supplying the commissary is still more complex than supplying a local grocery chain. The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), which manages the military commissaries, requires that all foods to be sold are subject to inspection by the Army Veterinary Service, whether that be seasonal fruit from a local farmer or packaged items from a national manufacturer. “Grocery stores can buy from local farms that don’t have to be inspected by anyone,” said Camp Lejeune Commissary Store Administrator Danny Fisher.

The requirement also follows through for the ingredients of processed goods, with food safety and security requirements of all steps in the chain of goods as well as throughout its transportation. “Be very vigilant of what goes on in the farms,” Fisher said. “You have to know all the way down the line.”

During solicitation, suppliers will, in fact, be required to submit information regarding their product recall procedures, said Kevin Robinson, DeCA spokesman. “The traceability of a product from farm to the store is of great concern to all federal agencies. Contractors must explain their recall system and identify how often they test their procedures.”

It is important that a potential supplier understand the nature of the potential threats to the nations’ food supply, Robinson added. He recommends that food processors develop a security plan covering food defense emergencies, train employees and validate the plan through exercises and adjust the security plan as needed.

Depending on the commodity, the supplier may also be required to produce documentation regarding its quality assurance program, HACCP implementation and use of on-site inspectors, Robinson said. “For certain types of acquisitions, DeCA personnel will actually conduct on-site plant visits to gain firsthand knowledge about a potential supplier’s operations.”
And once that food arrives in the commissary, it is subject to daily in-store inspections by the health inspectors rather than the much less frequent inspections required of a commercial grocery store. “We are held to inspections on a daily basis where they might get inspected once a year,” Fisher explained. In fact, the base has full-time inspectors who spend about half their day in the commissary alone.

As described in DeCA’s Food Safety, Security and Sanitation brochure, the food undergoes a multi-tiered inspection process for safety:

1. All food sold in military commissaries comes from approved sources as authorized by FDA, USDA, USDC, European Union or the US Army Veterinary Command.
2. Daily inspections begin when the food arrives at the base and continue until it is purchased.
3. Medical food inspectors from the U.S. Army Veterinary Command and U.S. Air Force Public Health work in the commissary, generally maintaining an office on the commissary receiving floor. When food is received at the commissary or central distribution center dock, it's checked for temperature, sanitation and signs of tampering or other damage. When in storage or on display in the commissary, the food is continuously monitored to ensure proper temperature, sanitation and rotation is maintained.

One area Grimsley sees the most problems during inspection is that of packaging, particularly with meats, she said. Ineffective product sealing causes the product to lose its vacuum seal or start to cook on one side. And for all products, she said, “make sure the things you are sending are in correct date.” Commissaries require that all products have complete shelf-life data listed, with use by dates on all items.

“DeCA sets a strict standard of how many days a product can have on it,” Fisher said, and a commissary employee keeps a running check on the dates of all products, rotating shelf items to promote first-in, first-out purchase.
How is your item selected for the commissary shelf? It is based primarily on known or anticipated customer demand, according to DeCA. Brand-name products are selected according to such criteria as product quality, competitive pricing, availability, anticipated customer demand and commercial product movement data. For other items, DeCA commodity managers establish a requirement for the item — e.g., meat (beef, pork) dairy, cheese and eggs, then undertake a formal selection process based on a best value evaluation that considers areas such as past performance, price, delivery and patron savings.

The author is staff editor of QA magazine.