Retiree On Base Dining: Thanks to the Air Force’s Food Transformation Initiative (FTI), retirees at six bases will soon be able to use military food service establishments previously reserved for active-duty Airmen.
Retirees will pay the same
market price as everyone else, and there will not be an added surcharge on top of the menu price. The six Air Force bases participating
in the initiative are Elmendorf AFB,
Diners will see an overall increase in the variety and availability of healthy menu options on base. FTI will reinvigorate Air Force dining by hiring a contractor to transition to hybrid facilities on bases that will be open to the entire base populace, much like common business and university campuses, services officials said.
Many base dining facilities have use rates of less than 50 percent. Instead of closing these facilities, Air Force plans call for transforming operations. This transformation will preserve the mission of providing meals to Airmen and bringing positive changes to the way Airmen are fed on base, services agency officials said.
While services officials are excited about the forthcoming changes, they emphasized things will not happen immediately and that each base will be different.
The first phase of the program is about improving menu options, they said, and the total transformation will take time. Opening the transformed dining venues to retirees and base employees will restore a sense of community because everyone will be able to eat together, Mr. Floyd said.
[Source: TREA