thedrifter
11-27-06, 07:38 PM
November 27, 2006
On Boxer, meals on schedule 24/7
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
ABOARD USS BOXER— Those dreaded long, winding and tiring chow lines are history.
This big-deck amphibious assault ship, now deployed and operating in the Western Pacific, has tossed aside scheduled meals at sea in favor of feeding the crew and riders round-the-clock.
Boxer’s 24/7 operation began this summer and features extended hours for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including hot mainline meals — not just peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches — and additional specialty food bars and salad bars.
Results have exceeded the command’s expectations. “The lines are reduced significantly,” said Senior Chief Culinary Specialist Russ Paje. With the 24/7 feeding, “they can come down any time they want.”
The idea was to provide full-service meals all the time to accommodate the crew and embarked sailors and Marines, regardless of their watches and work schedules underway. Boxer first tested the system in June, and maintained it through its predeployment workups through regular replenishments of food stores.
Navy ships traditionally serve three daily meals during preset periods each day. At sea, training takes priority over scheduled mealtimes, so sailors and Marines who miss a meal are often left to suffer or grab a snack at a vending machine. With many crew members standing 6-, 8-, or 10-hour watches, “they get off at different times, and some of them … have to get a relief just to eat chow,” Paje said.
At times, he said, he was asked to hold the food line open “because we’d have a bunch of people who haven’t eaten yet.”
The presence of the Marines — about 1,000 with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit — doubled the number of people to feed and lengthened the typical hour-long wait to get a meal. Shortening the line “was a big thing,” Paje said.
Meals on the Navy’s big decks, including its aircraft carriers, mean long lines snaking through passageways and stomach-gurgling waits of an hour or more.
But Boxer’s new plan shrunk the lines by as much as 90 percent, Paje said.
“People are constantly eating,” he said. “Some people don’t get off watch at nine o’clock in the morning, and guess what? They can still get a hot breakfast, eggs to order, whatever we had to order. We replenish it every hour.”
At first, the round-the-clock feeding operation drew some skepticism.
Some thought the unlimited availability of food would get the crew fat, waste food, deplete food stores or make more work for the crew of culinary specialists and food service attendants.
Not so, said food service officials.
With meals always available, sailors and Marines can eat when they have time and when they are hungry. They choose more and healthier food items, especially under the new 21-day standardized menu, and pick from a constant availability of fresh vegetable and fruit salads as well as sandwiches.
“I have not run out of food yet. The other ships have, and they are not on 24 hours,” Paje said with a chuckle.
Sailors and Marines can grab a second helping or wait a few hours to eat again, without having to wait for meal hours. “They’re not as in the rush to get there, because they can get it later,” noted Chief Mass Communication Specialist Mike Hatfield. “We get more productivity out of our guys because of it.”
Hatfield, for one, thinks that it also might spur more sailors to eat healthier “because they don’t have to pack it all in one meal if they know they have to tide themselves over.”
Food specialists found that less food was being wasted since famished diners didn’t feel the need to pile their trays or plates high to satisfy their hunger. “My waste has gone down a lot,” Paje said.
A 24/7 food operation might sound like a lot of work for the culinary specialists preparing the meals and food service attendants helping out at the messes.
“It was like a big ball, it’s just rolling and rolling. It seems endless” at times, Paje said.
“It seems more of a workload, but it’s not,” he said. “It’s all about … time management.”
Food service runs two daytime crews that overlap. A night crew works from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Far fewer boxed lunches — a staple for crew members working the late-night hours or early- morning shifts — are now prepared, mostly just for medical emergencies. And gone are the “early chow” passes.
Paje enjoyed explaining the new routine to a few engineers who asked for early chow passes. He told them: “You guys can now get up any time of day and eat all night long, all day long.”
Ellie
On Boxer, meals on schedule 24/7
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
ABOARD USS BOXER— Those dreaded long, winding and tiring chow lines are history.
This big-deck amphibious assault ship, now deployed and operating in the Western Pacific, has tossed aside scheduled meals at sea in favor of feeding the crew and riders round-the-clock.
Boxer’s 24/7 operation began this summer and features extended hours for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including hot mainline meals — not just peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches — and additional specialty food bars and salad bars.
Results have exceeded the command’s expectations. “The lines are reduced significantly,” said Senior Chief Culinary Specialist Russ Paje. With the 24/7 feeding, “they can come down any time they want.”
The idea was to provide full-service meals all the time to accommodate the crew and embarked sailors and Marines, regardless of their watches and work schedules underway. Boxer first tested the system in June, and maintained it through its predeployment workups through regular replenishments of food stores.
Navy ships traditionally serve three daily meals during preset periods each day. At sea, training takes priority over scheduled mealtimes, so sailors and Marines who miss a meal are often left to suffer or grab a snack at a vending machine. With many crew members standing 6-, 8-, or 10-hour watches, “they get off at different times, and some of them … have to get a relief just to eat chow,” Paje said.
At times, he said, he was asked to hold the food line open “because we’d have a bunch of people who haven’t eaten yet.”
The presence of the Marines — about 1,000 with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit — doubled the number of people to feed and lengthened the typical hour-long wait to get a meal. Shortening the line “was a big thing,” Paje said.
Meals on the Navy’s big decks, including its aircraft carriers, mean long lines snaking through passageways and stomach-gurgling waits of an hour or more.
But Boxer’s new plan shrunk the lines by as much as 90 percent, Paje said.
“People are constantly eating,” he said. “Some people don’t get off watch at nine o’clock in the morning, and guess what? They can still get a hot breakfast, eggs to order, whatever we had to order. We replenish it every hour.”
At first, the round-the-clock feeding operation drew some skepticism.
Some thought the unlimited availability of food would get the crew fat, waste food, deplete food stores or make more work for the crew of culinary specialists and food service attendants.
Not so, said food service officials.
With meals always available, sailors and Marines can eat when they have time and when they are hungry. They choose more and healthier food items, especially under the new 21-day standardized menu, and pick from a constant availability of fresh vegetable and fruit salads as well as sandwiches.
“I have not run out of food yet. The other ships have, and they are not on 24 hours,” Paje said with a chuckle.
Sailors and Marines can grab a second helping or wait a few hours to eat again, without having to wait for meal hours. “They’re not as in the rush to get there, because they can get it later,” noted Chief Mass Communication Specialist Mike Hatfield. “We get more productivity out of our guys because of it.”
Hatfield, for one, thinks that it also might spur more sailors to eat healthier “because they don’t have to pack it all in one meal if they know they have to tide themselves over.”
Food specialists found that less food was being wasted since famished diners didn’t feel the need to pile their trays or plates high to satisfy their hunger. “My waste has gone down a lot,” Paje said.
A 24/7 food operation might sound like a lot of work for the culinary specialists preparing the meals and food service attendants helping out at the messes.
“It was like a big ball, it’s just rolling and rolling. It seems endless” at times, Paje said.
“It seems more of a workload, but it’s not,” he said. “It’s all about … time management.”
Food service runs two daytime crews that overlap. A night crew works from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Far fewer boxed lunches — a staple for crew members working the late-night hours or early- morning shifts — are now prepared, mostly just for medical emergencies. And gone are the “early chow” passes.
Paje enjoyed explaining the new routine to a few engineers who asked for early chow passes. He told them: “You guys can now get up any time of day and eat all night long, all day long.”
Ellie