Wellington Barracks in central London houses the foot guards battalions that carry out public duties at such locations as nearby Buckingham Palace. The Coldstream, Grenadier, Irish, Scots, and Welsh Guards are among the 500 or so personnel based there, though others will also be accommodated during occasions such as royal jubilees, coronations, and funerals.
It is one of nearly 300 dining operations across 100 military sites operated by Aramark where a new food proposition called Market Hall Kitchen was launched on May 1st this year.
There are 80 Aramark staff on site carrying out a range of service, with a 30-strong team providing the catering. They usually have to serve a complement of 500 soldiers, though this number can jump to 1,000 at times like the recent funeral for the Queen and the King’s coronation.
Glyn Ingram, managing director for Government Services with Aramark UK, makes the point that the new proposition is not a brand but a series of labels under the Market Hall Kitchen name.
It is part of the MoD’s EATS scheme (Exploring the Appetite of Today’s Soldiers) that was launched in 2022.
It represents the latest development in military catering whose starting point was the traditional ‘scoff house’ approach that delivered in canteens as part of the Daily Meal Ration and based on a ‘core meal’ concept.
In 2006, as UK military site dining became mostly outsourced, the next iteration, Pay As You Dine (PAYD), went live.
This retained a ‘core meal’, but became increasingly retail-led, with meal concepts such as burgers and pizzas offering service personnel a food offer that more closely resembled what they would find on the High Street.
That, in turn, became dated and the MoD started to work with military catering contractors such as Aramark to develop an more flexible and casual food proposition that provides the armed forces with tasty, fast-changing concepts that meet modern-day demand for international flavours and hand-held options.
It aims to deliver freshly-prepared food that is not only healthy and nutritious, but carbon-friendly and meets allergy and diet-choice requirements.
Glyn Ingram believes Market Hall Kitchen marks the most significant change in the Ministry of Defence’s food services in over 40 years.
He said: “The new proposition adopts the military’s growing desire for enhanced experiences that allow them to make more flexible decisions personally on what they eat.
“This is quite a shift from the previous way of operating, which was very much led by a pre-selected, restrictive core menu decided for personnel.
“Sustainability and wellbeing have taken the lead with the new menu, with 25% of the daily menu being classed as ‘green’ recipes, helping to increase healthier choices, in addition to the launch of our Foodprint carbon labelling programme.
“We are the first contract caterer to have rolled this out across the sector in this way, and it’s already achieving fantastic results. To date, 72.5% of defence sites have lowered their average carbon emissions per dish sold, and we have observed a reduction across the sector of 18.2%, with the average dish falling from 0.65kg to 0.53kg CO2eq per portion.”
Wellington Barracks incorporates three dining areas – the Junior Ranks Dining (JDR) room, the Sergeants’ Mess, and the Officers’ Mess. The last refurbishment of these facilities was in 2017-2018 when the JDR, the biggest of the three, became the Eatery.
Said Glyn: “This was a well-established Aramark concept that the company had used when bidding for the contract. Although it had branding that attempted to mirror what was on the High St, it later became seen as having a bit of an ‘institutionalised identity’ because the High St had moved on.”
That was the cue in 2021 for the military to work with its major facilities services contractors in having a major rethink of the catering offer. This became EATS, which aims to treat military personnel as customers.
“Now, with the latest iteration, we have real flexibility. For instance, we can put steak on the counter with chips and peas for £4. That’s not for everyone, but it’s real value and something previously we could only consider serving within a B&I environment.”
Process
“We spent three years working with the military on this to look at the impact on the soldier, the nutrition side of things, getting the flavours right and, importantly, reducing the environmental impact of the menu.
“It represented a huge change for the military and for our teams. We had to get the internal communications right to help service personnel understand what was happening and to get our teams ready. That preparation work was so important to helping them get ready for new menus, new types of food, new ways of delivering it, and how to handle comments from customers.”
For six months before the May launch he said the Aramark teams around the country had a weekly call among themselves, comparing notes and offering a chance to ask questions and offer feedback.
“That gave us a chance, and the confidence, to be ready for anything on launch day,” he said.
Launch
Trials were arranged at unit level, with different menus worked on at different sites. Each one involved key members of the military to see how the they worked and to start the process of ‘getting the word out to service personnel’ that although this was change, it was something good, an improvement.
“Before the launch we looked at the trials and reviewed what sold and what didn’t. The military carried out their own surveys and fed back to us too,” said Glyn.
“We had a central war room on launch day to cope with the change to individually priced menu items rather than core or set meals – this was something that both the military and the catering teams had to learn.
“We scheduled daily wrap-up calls between ourselves, the Defence Infrastructure Office (DIO), and the military to look at issues as they arose. In the end they only lasted a couple of days because we realised there were no big problems.
“We planned it so well we weren’t caught out and the teams were prepared well enough to handle any issues that did come up.”
Staffing & Training
The new concept has not really changed Aramark’s catering staffing numbers, but it has demanded they develop new skill sets such as food presentation skills and customer engagement.
“We’re no longer simply serving, but selling and our staff are encouraged to share their passion and knowledge about the food. Some were quicker than others about picking up on that, but these helped pull the others along and now everyone’s happy and that lifts the staff.
“In essence the ‘core meal’ has gone, but the new concept allows service personnel to use the old core meal value to choose the individual items they want. It’s embedded in the system but not sold as a core meal.
“It excites me and the team – it’s not transactional any more, they’re now looking to put themselves forward and happily talk to customers.
“One of the messages we had to get across was their worry that they might ‘run out’ of something. We told them this wasn’t a problem and that the way to look at it was that we had estimated demand and been so successful we had ‘sold out’.”
Review
A three-month review after the launch showed a 26% uplift in the numbers coming in to eat. It was also an opportunity to look at the menu winners and any losers.
“I’m glad to say that six months on and that initial rise in customer numbers has been maintained,” said Glyn.
“We got the messages out early about the new concept and the changes, and dispelled any myths that it would be more expensive.
“The flexibility it now allows appeals to the culture of the younger people coming into the military, and the ones they want to attract to join. For older soldiers, after military careers in which they have been given no or little choice, they can now build a plate of food that they want to eat.”
Health & Sustainability
Gina Camfield, head of ESG Aramark UK, points out how the menus in the JDR display the price, the nutritional value, and indicate how ‘green’ each item is in terms of sustainability.
“The nutritional content of the food is something that is becoming increasingly important in the armed forces. Many are aware of what a good, healthy diet looks like and want to be able to choose what they want to address those health concerns,” she said.
“It was also very important that the new menus were more sustainable and we teamed with the Nutritics to use its Foodprint system to score the carbon and water usage.
“A three-month analysis of the CO2 contributions from dish sales from the new menu compared to the old has already shown a 13% reduction, the equivalent of more than 309,000kg of carbon.
“It has helped flagged up some of the biggest contributing items, such as the Big Breakfast wrap and the Cumberland sausage, and we’re now looking at ways to bring the scores down on these and others.
“As part of our work on carbon labelling and marketing we came up with some fun ways to get the military to engage.
“One, for example, was a game we designed called ‘Play Your Carbon Right’ showing those taking part a card with a dish and a CO2 score and then turning over another menu card and asking if the dish it showed had a higher or lower carbon score. It was great fun and got lots of customer engagement.”