With all respect due to someone like you who has to eat there every day, based on multiple briefings, there were no budget cuts.
There were many changes you are seeing & living, which thankfully most of us do not have to!
Specifics: The cadet dining budget remained steady for AY11-12, and was an increase over previous years. I want to say it went up almost 30% either this year or last, would need to check my notes. And some signs it will increase again for next year. (see Source below)
What they
are doing is redirecting their budget to try to improve variety & quality. Which is not a bad thing. Let's explore some of these....
The tablecloth expense came out of the current $11/day cadet budget. Eliminating it allowed them to spend more on the food, which they did. You are getting fresher
pseudo-Egg now because of that change!
Just one specific example: Salad bar change
- Reduced waste of uneaten salads on table (cost of buying the food)
- Reduced preparation & serving costs (Reduced servers, direct labor reduction)
- Reduced waste disposal ($75/ton)
I heard the savings figure on this one change, it was a big number.
That savings was directly applied to fresher materials and increased variety on the bar over the previous fixed servings.
So where did the money go? Increased fresh content vs processed/canned foods. Eggs were universally reviled, and they were able to go to a more expensive Egg approach, which per surveys are much preferred. (But may still suck, who knows).
So no budget decrease. In fact, they are expecting/hoping for another bump for AY12-13.
So why are cadets still complaining? Some of it is the nature of the beast, it's a dining hall with institutional food.
Some of it is changes from the regular Army mandated diet guidelines. And as the head honcho described it: "Your kids at home would rather eat pizza, hot-dogs and icecream everyday, would you allow it?".
All that said, my cadet commented: "that sounds good in theory, reality is they don't serve butter with biscuits because it goes over the dietary guideline. Then they serve butter at lunch when there is nothing to put it on, but they had room in the calorie allowance. But then again, it's the Army, what do you expect".
So maybe some of this is propaganda. But it looks to me like they are trying hard.
Other interesting tidbits:
- All profit from Grant hall goes back into cadet dining budget and is used to try to improve the diet quality
- They price compare sandwich cost and meat content for Grant hall vs local competitors. Only subway is cheaper, and they have half the meat, and it's not Boar's Head. (He had notes on this!)
- Same for Pizza's price/quality at Grant Hall
- The keep dining hall staff to cook so they can control quality, but outsourced servers as they can float the number required with 36 hr notice, thus further reducing labor costs. Which allows more for actual food purchase (¿Puedo tener algunos mantequilla más por favor?)
- USMA has a greater challenge than nearly every other Army chow hall in that they cannot prepare upon demand, they server more at the same time than any other facility. So yes, you may be able to get a perceived better meal in A'stan on an AF or Army base because of that fact.
Source: Notes from April 2012 briefing by LTC Messit, DCA USMA
Budget figures also presented in other USMA briefings in March
Editorial comment from other USMA MAJ & LTC's present: When compared with the RA mess halls, it's not the worst, nor the best. About average. With all of them being impacted by the dietary guidelines. Garrison food will be less flexible in general than ordering what you want.