Military Catering

The Defence Catering Group (DCG) was formed in 2000 and provides catering for our military services throughout the world.
Its mission is:

“to deliver catering services in order to sustain UK military capability, current and future”.

3663 - First for Foodservice has been contracted to supply the military since 1997. The total value of the 3663-MoD contract is £95m per annum where approximately £15m is spent on red meat (of which about £3m is in pork).

You might imagine that this is a fairly simple operation. But 3663 supplies a range of 1200-1300 food products across three temperature bands and delivers to around 800 delivery points in the UK. In total they make 150,000 deliveries and assemble 21 million food items in a year.

The UK Bases normally generate a stable demand with all those living on the station catered for daily. But when the unit is on operational duty or exercise, the demand increases substantially. Everyone, regardless of where they are accommodated, then has to be catered for.

Even with this complexity, 3663 achieves a 99.7% lines delivered against lines ordered by the mess chef – though some substitution is permitted. This is largely due to 3663’s close relationship with its supplier base.

Pork is one of the armed forces core products and this is an important market for British pig producers.

Working with 3663, Geo-Adams & Sons Ltd and Patrick Deans Farms we tracked pork loins and legs from the farm to the processing plant in Lincolnshire and then onto an RAF Base - the end customer.

This was already a well functioning chain, involving four stages and widely renowned as a model for supplying the armed forces. But as we have consistently found, even the best chains have ample scope for improvement.

Improving Customer Value

Geo-Adams and its suppliers work to a tight specification, most of which have been in place for many years. However, the team revisited the specifications and recommended three main changes regarding reforming of chops, fillet pack size and boneless loin.

Reforming Chops

Chops are manufactured by cutting a loin into about twenty-two pieces. The existing specification requires Geo-Adams to reassemble and pack the chops back into the shape of the loin. This is a labour intensive exercise.

Historically, there were reasons for reforming, including preserving meat for longer periods of storage. However, the team queried this requirement and found it was no longer necessary. There was a potential saving on consumer price (i.e. price delivered to MoD) by eliminating the reform process at Geo-Adams, and simply packing the chops from the loin into a plastic bag.

Fillet Pack size

Frozen pork fillets were previously supplied in packs of 15. The team recommended this be reduced to packs of 5. The chef could then defrost in smaller quantities, no more than required, reducing waste to the Catering Group at minimal cost to the supplier.

Boneless Loin

The loin had been supplied with bone and then boned-out by the chef. But the bone was no longer used by the customer and disposing of it incurred a cost.

There were reasons why the boning operation may be better done by the processor:

1. It can be carried out more efficiently on an industrial scale by the processor rather than in the mess.

2. The bone can be used for other products by the processors and has a small residual value.

Further Opportunities

The changes in product specification were a key area of benefit from the project. However, various other opportunities were identified by the team. These were grouped into projects and each project was assessed against a series of Customer Value Indicators to rank their importance. The table shows the results.

• 3663 – First for Foodservice and MoD had already identified opportunities for electronic trading. Currently, the telesales department in 3663 – First for Foodservice calls the military bases and keys-in orders for the next delivery. Electronic trading has the potential to reduce costs and improve order accuracy. However, this requires heavy investment in IT and information management structure that will need further investigation.
  
  

• Geo-Adams operates a state of the art slaughter line, with excellent ergonomics leading to high consistency and quality. They are also the first users of Autofom in the UK. This allows each carcase to be scanned ultrasonically, creating a three dimensional picture of the muscle and fat present and allowing precise payment to the producer for the actual meat delivered. Despite all these positives, the team still found opportunities to improve layout of the cutting room and to reduce the number of vacuum packing faults. This has triggered RMIF Masterclasses – in which an expert engineer guides the company through finding solutions.
  
  

• Backhauling occurs when the customer collects from a supplier on the way back to base after making a delivery (or occasionally the other way round when a supplier acts as a delivery agent on behalf of the customer). The team identified scope for backhauling between 3663 and Geo-Adams and this is being further evaluated.
  
  

• The farm owned by Patrick Dean Farms and managed by Ian Smith was run to very high standards. For example, piglet mortality was less than 5% - much lower than industry norms. But practices vary between stockman and mortality rates can reach as high as 19%. Lower rates have been achieved by standardising the work of the better stockman so that everyone recruited for the job can have the same performance.
  
  

• However, some scope was identified to reduce the amount of wasted feed (5% loss on this farm) which mainly occurs when breeding stock is not successfully pregnant.

To ensure that the longer term potential is realised, the team suggested the appointment of a supply chain facilitator. Ideally, this would be a neutral person, employed collectively by all parties in the chain. The facilitator would follow up on the action plans and provide a further impetus for improvements.

This would be a radical move and we are unaware of any precedent in food but the scale of this operation, the relatively settled relationships and the agreement in principle to share benefits between all parties makes it feasible. The recommendation is under discussion.

Project Team

The core project team consisted of:

• Jim Symons (Geo-Adams, General Manager),
• Graeme Pritchard (former 3663, Director of MOD supply),
• Paul Green (3663, Senior Fresh Foods Buyer) and
• Chris Magee (DCG, Operations Warrant Officer).

Conclusion

This example illustrates some key points about whole chain improvement:

• Even chains considered as the most efficient of their kind can invariably find further scope for improvement. Indeed, it is often the best chains that are the most receptive to ideas for change. The perfect chain does not exist!
  
  

• As with the reforming of the loin, cost adding activities are often built in to procedures for historical reasons. Although they once had a valid purpose, the need can become obsolete. However, the steps (and the cost) can easily become viewed as ‘a way of life’, never reviewed because ‘it’s always been done this way’. Only by taking a step back through a project of this type is the status quo challenged.
  
  

• Suppliers can often view the customer’s specification as cast in stone – ‘if that’s what they’re asking for, there must be a good reason’. But buyers usually have an incomplete understanding of the cost implications of each part of their specification. An open dialogue, with each element of the specification challenged, can expose the true costs and lead to the development of better solutions (such as de-boning at the supplier in this case).
  
  

• Opportunities usually arise in the chain for a ‘quid pro quo’. In this instance, the MoD removed the requirement to reform chops into the shape of the loin, creating a saving for the processor. In return, Geo-Adams agreed to supply smaller pack sizes of fillets, reducing waste for the chef.
  
  

• Usually, in exercises such as these, scope for immediate saving is identified giving an instant payback on the effort involved. It is tempting to stop at this point. However, the biggest wins of all usually arise from longer term activities and these require more patience and tenacity to unlock.