Session Summaries

Welcome and Keynote: Retail Food Operations and Business Opportunities. The Director of the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) will highlight the scope, challenges and business opportunities associated with providing retail food support to military personnel, retirees and family members worldwide. He will also highlight innovative DeCA initiatives that make the Commissary both a valued benefit and a contributor to recruitment, retention, family readiness, and quality of life for America’s warfighters and their families.

Retail Food Opportunities: Brand and Non-Brand Products. Officials from the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) will provide an overview of worldwide commissary operations, acquisition processes and vendor qualification under Title 10, broker and distributor engagement and regional contracts and prime vendors for non-brand products. Other speakers will highlight logistical and financial processes for selling through DeCA and will provide the broker and prime vendor perspectives, including their processes for engaging suppliers. Finally, DeCA will address initiatives to address food insecurity in the military population.

Speakers:

TBA, Defense Commissary Agency
Steve Rossetti, President, American Logistics Association
TBA, Industry Representatives

Supply Chain and Research and Development for Tactical Rations. Officials from the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Soldier Center will highlight ongoing research into advanced tactical rations. Officials from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Subsistence Supply Chain will address acquisition and distribution processes and challenges for current tactical rations. Finally, current tactical ration and food packaging suppliers and R&D entities will address their market engagement, supply chain/vendor qualification processes and ongoing research in food preservation, packaging and other technologies germane to advanced tactical rations.

Speakers:

Dr. Erin Stomberg, Division Chief of Combat Feeding, DEVCOM Soldier Center Soldier Sustainment
TBA, Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Subsistence
TBA, Industry and Academia representatives

Lunch Remarks: Secretary Grier Martin, North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (NCDMVA). Secretary Martin, who recently served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower & Reserve Affairs, will highlight NCDMVA activities in support of active duty and reserve component personnel, family members, veterans and military installations in North Carolina. Dedicated to making North Carolina truly the “Most Military Friendly State” in the country, Secretary Martin will focus on statewide initiatives that support military recruitment, retention, readiness and quality of life for America’s warfighters, veterans and families that call North Carolina home.

Lunch Keynote: Subsistence Support to the Warfighter: Current and Future Challenges. William J. Kenny, Executive Director, Contracting and Acquisition Management, Defense Logistics Agency, Troop Support will discuss challenges in providing operational food support to America’s warfighters at installations and deployed locations worldwide, including in a future contested logistics environment. He will also discuss the critical role of growers, food producers, distributors, service providers and other industry partners in partnering with DLA to support America’s warfighters in peace and war.

Troop Feeding Operations and Business Opportunities. Installation food service representative(s) will discuss food requirements generation and ordering processes to support their troop feeding facilities. DLA Subsistence officials will outline acquisition processes for supporting dining facilities at multiple installations through regional prime vendor contracts. Full line and fresh fruit/vegetable prime vendors will discuss their challenges and supplier engagement processes in support of DLA, installations and warfighters.

Speakers:

TBA, Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Subsistence
TBA, 406th Army Field Support Battalion – Liberty
TBA, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base
TBA, Industry Representatives

Other Federal Agency and Department of Defense Opportunities. Speakers from the Department of Justice will discuss acquisition processes to support food requirements of federal correctional facilities. DLA Subsistence speakers will address acquisitions to support Job Corps Centers, VA Hospitals, other non-DoD customers and, with the Department of Agriculture, over 16,200 schools and 117 tribes through the National School Lunch Program and the Federal Distribution Program to Indian Reservations, respectively. Speakers will also address food requirements and support to Exchange and Non-Appropriated Fund (NAF) activities on military installations.

Speakers:

TBA, Federal Bureau of Prisons
TBA, Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Subsistence
TBA, Industry Representatives