PAYD Bringing ISS To Its Knees

[br9mp81]

what is sad about this is that you could have stuck MCSU in a swamp and still had morale boosting food in hours,now it seems your left with the rejects from kitchen nightmares running the JRMs all on the cheapest menu they can get away with.

 

[Soon To Leave]

It used to said "an army marches on it's stomach" and it was the paramount responsibility of the superiors for the welfare and morale of their troops.

Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be the case!

 

[grumpyoldb]

Someone needs to give Gordon Ramsay a ring.......................... DT_Xtremez_42:

 

[techie_tubby]

The JRM at Valley used to do cook to order at weekends. I never understood why it isn't adopted across the RAF.

 

[Barch]

Someone needs to give Gordon Ramsay a ring.......................... DT_Xtremez_42:

Heston Bloominhellshisname did a thing with the RN submarine rations a couple of years back on >> TV <<.

It needs something like him or James Martin at >> Scarborough Hospital << to sort out the issues. At Scarborough James Martin had the same kind of money as the PAYD core meal costs and revolutionised the hospital kitchen and menus.

ISS could learn a lot from these two.

 

[FOMz]

And thatfood that HB cooked was pretty artyfarty.What people want is decent food at the right price... And they aren't getting either.

 

[Barch]

And thatfood that HB cooked was pretty artyfarty.What people want is decent food at the right price... And they aren't getting either.

It may well have been but it shows that things can be done within budgetry constraints and proves that the ISS menus are evolved by food purchasers and not by chefs.

 

[Tin basher]

the ISS menus are evolved by food purchasers and not by chefs.

Thanks to the dead hand of the bean counters sadly that is true of many facets of the RAF these days. It's become a place where things are done down to price rather than up to a standard and not just catering.

 

[firestorm]

Shock, horror! Essential service gets privatised,essential service turns to rat sh1t.
Some things arent meant to make a profit, this is one of them.

 

[busby1971]

Shock, horror! Essential service gets privatised,essential service turns to rat sh1t.
Some things arent meant to make a profit, this is one of them.

The profit, or fee, should have been paid by the Service and taken out of the saving they would have made from getting rid of the back office functions. The provision of the service should have been made without a profit element thereby negating the need for ISS to provide a medley of meatball meals, did anyone see The Apprentice the other day.

The way food service works these days all food is made off site and reheated/cooked and served on site by some one with a food safety certificate, you want a steak pie, they'll range from very cheap air pies full of mechanically reclaimed meat to a pricey one with the odd identifiable chunck of meat and all points in between, same for all food types from pasta to puddings.

Not my issue but anyone can put in a FOI about this, recommend a brother or sister do it, to find out the details, in my last job working for the civil service we were swamped with FOI requests due to the going ons within and they have to be replied to pronto.

 

[mememe]

These so called chefs/cooks/dinner ladies what ever they are called that work for ISS, what quals do they have? Seen quite a few from the eastern block around.

 

[Umbo]

Reading this thread is somewhat alarming. Ok, there were good JRM's and bad. I've eaten in both kinds, before realising it was better renting a house with some others on the squadron. The question is, are Airmen permitted to cook in their rooms or block kitchen areas?

If this has been asked before, my apologies. Eldest Son currently going through Halton, so experienced the catering in the old Appo Mess ( Henderson I think). as part of parents social work day to remove fears of military training. Great day with lots of memories. Food was bloody god awful though. No dead beetles underfoot though, so some improvement. Do I start buying microwaves and induction hobs etc. in preparation.

Cheers
Umbo

 

[Dragoon]

It looks like it all revolved around singlies not wanting to pay for food at the weekend when they legged it for a weekends fun and games, but how many bothered to tell the mess that they were going away and wouldn't require feeding? The mess didn't know and so they cooked the meals. Maybe a better idea would've been someway of "clocking off" on a Friday where the info was passed to the mess not to provide the meals in the first place.

I went through a phase of putting in leave passes for the weekends, that way I would get the money back for the meals I didn't eat. A method suggested by my friendly PSF drinking buddy one night.

Surely that was the best way around the matter? Obviously it only works for whole days though, not partial meals missed.

I left the mob just before this debacle hit Brize where I was stationed last, and I'm glad I'm not around to suffer it.
The food at Brize was (on the weekdays) very good, come the weekend and it took a bit of a dive, a trend that seemed to affect every base I ate at.

It's not much of a surprise that the service is so bad though is it? Nothing these days is provided as a service, everything is run as a business. Gas, Water, Power (in the Civvy world) and now food in the military, all something you'd think would be a service, as they are essential to daily living, are now to be traded with us, rather than provided to us at cost price.

Does anyone think that perhaps ISS will be booted out at some point and the MoD will reinstate our chefs back to the old ways?

 

[busby1971]

I went through a phase of putting in leave passes for the weekends, that way I would get the money back for the meals I didn't eat. A method suggested by my friendly PSF drinking buddy one night.

Two problems with that, in the old days if you put leave in over a weekend it came off your entitlement, you could book out the mess but you had to be gone for more than 2 days in complete days.

 

[Toffee-Scouser]

Reading this thread is somewhat alarming. Ok, there were good JRM's and bad. I've eaten in both kinds, before realising it was better renting a house with some others on the squadron. The question is, are Airmen permitted to cook in their rooms or block kitchen areas?

If this has been asked before, my apologies. Eldest Son currently going through Halton, so experienced the catering in the old Appo Mess ( Henderson I think). as part of parents social work day to remove fears of military training. Great day with lots of memories. Food was bloody god awful though. No dead beetles underfoot though, so some improvement. Do I start buying microwaves and induction hobs etc. in preparation.

Cheers
Umbo

it depends where you get based, some camps have a blanket ban on cooking where others don't

 

[muttywhitedog]

Does anyone think that perhaps ISS will be booted out at some point?

Not so much booted out as pulling out. But yes, I think ISS & MOD will go their separate ways at some stage in the future, as it is a flawed model. No company can provide meals at such low prices and turn a profit.

and the MoD will reinstate our chefs back to the old ways?

No. They are more likely to tell those livers-in that they must sort their own meals out, like the other 60 million people in the Uk do. At this point, blocks will be fitted with kitchens, as there will be money available from closing all the service messes.

 

[br9mp81]

Not so much booted out as pulling out. But yes, I think ISS & MOD will go their separate ways at some stage in the future, as it is a flawed model. No company can provide meals at such low prices and turn a profit.



No. They are more likely to tell those livers-in that they must sort their own meals out, like the other 60 million people in the Uk do. At this point, blocks will be fitted with kitchens, as there will be money available from closing all the service messes.

and your accom charges will go up as well,there are penpushers and bean counters out there who having never served, see the forces as just another job and no reason why all the things like messes,travel warrents and any thing else they see as a perk cannot be binned for smartie points on thier next civil service pdr.

 

[needsabiggerfuse]

Why doesn't someone copy what little Martha Payne did?

LINKY BIT

 

[Dragoon]

On the subject of kitchens being fitted in the blocks, is that likely to ever actually happen?

If the guys in the block had to cook food themselves, as it was the only option available, surely a hotplate and a microwave in the kitchen/washroom isn't going to suffice?

Would the MoD have to provide fridges? I know many of the lads have a small fridge in their room, I did and kept my milk and beer cold, but will they get allowances to buy proper fridges, or will there be big units fitted in the kitchens?

How many kitchens would be fitted in each block? I can imagine a lot of fraying tempers with all the lads coming home and wanting to cook at the same time, dirty pots, pans etc laying around, people wanting to wash up after they've retired to their room to eat, etc etc.
Then if you have communal fridges, your going to have food being stolen, contaminated, not enough room in there because someones filled it up with meat or something.

I can see chaos ensuing if self catering was the only option. Still, I doubt that would stop the MoD if it saved them money.

 

[techie_tubby]

Would the MoD have to provide fridges? I know many of the lads have a small fridge in their room, I did and kept my milk and beer cold, but will they get allowances to buy proper fridges, or will there be big units fitted in the kitchens?

The new slam blocks have a very large kitchen per floor. The ones at Leeming came fully furnished with several fridges, microwaves, hobs, cupboards and one lockable one per room.