If you had to live on £2.34 a day, doing a hard physical job in the world’s war zones, how would you cope? It may sound like a stringent budget, but it is the amount that chefs in the Royal Navy are given to feed each man or woman per day on board the UK’s warships.
Cooked breakfasts, drinks, lunches and main meals are all prepared to budget in swaying galley kitchens as the ships travel to carry out surveillance in the Persian Gulf, tackle piracy off the east coast of Africa or carry aid to natural disaster zones.
On board HMS Dauntless, the navy’s newest type 45 Destroyer, Lieutenant Commander John Kirwan, the logistics officer, is on the deck of the ship in Portsmouth dockyard. The deck is covered in sailors, some keeping watch over the gangway, assault rifles strapped to their chests. Kirwan walks into the body of the grey ship and scrambles down the steep steel ladders that lead to the galley.
How do the chefs do it? “Creatively,” says Kirwan. “That budget covers everything - your tea, coffee, sugar everything.”
The budget has in recent years been a matter of political controversy, with MPs arguing the armed forces should be allocated more for their food. Back in 2007, Tory MP Mike Penning claimed dogs used by the army were given food costing over £2.60 a day, but the MOD disputed his figures and said dogs cost less than troops to feed.
Whether the coalition government will up the daily budget remains to be seen. But as it stands, chefs in the navy works within that budget to provide familiar foods from home and a varied menu.
A cooked breakfast is provided every morning and typical lunches include soups and baked potatoes. Evening meals are often curries, pies or pasta dishes. The ship’s officers, who eat in the Wardroom rather than the sailor’s Mess, have the option of starters and a cheeseboard, which they pay for from their own pocket. Alcohol can also be bought by ratings and officers as an extra.
Purple Foodservice has the contract to supply the armed forces and will deliver more than £70 million worth of food to the army, navy and air force around the world this year.
Purple Foodservice’s managing director is Paul Dickinson, an ex-army cook, who rose through the ranks to become a logistics officer himself, before leaving to embark on a corporate career.
Purple Foodservice is a surprisingly small operation, considering the role it plays, and has just nine staff. “I think it is very important that of the nine of us, three have had military service and the other six are commercially based,” he says. “We are obviously in a commercial industry, but at the same time we have a customer that has particular requirements.”
Each year, Purple Foodservice delivers 1,200 tonnes of potatoes to the navy, 50t of cauliflower, 55t of mushrooms (“there are a lot of fried breakfasts,” says Dickinson), 74t of tomatoes, 125t of carrots, 190t of onions, 150t of apples and 80t of bananas.
“Wherever possible, we try to use UK product,” says Dickinson. “But of course, we have an extensive range of core vegetables so if it is in season it comes from the UK, if not it comes from overseas.”
The fresh produce is replaced with frozen or tinned when ships leave the UK and the ship’s orders of meat, fish, rice, pasta and store cupboard items are delivered by Purple Foodservice and hoisted on board newer ships like HMS Dauntless with cranes. On older ships that don’t have the room to take deliveries in this way, sailors form an old fashioned hand-to-hand chain, passing cases of food from person to person, down through the bowels of the ship and into the galley store rooms.
For sailors sleeping in bunks, sharing toilets and showers, and constantly on call should the need arise, ordinary domestic life is a faraway world. Hot drinks and a good meal can be a crucial mood enhancer.
When a ship leaves port and enters an area that requires round the clock staffing, the navy’s food budget is upped by 15 per cent, or by an extra 34p per person per day. “The ship will work six-hour watches,” says Kirwan. “People will be up for six hours, asleep for six hours, so you’ve always got someone on.”
When his sailors are watch-keeping through the night, Kirwan often gets food sent up from the kitchens for them. “The Captain calls the kitchen his morale centre,” he says.
In a navy base, deliveries are made to ships with lorries and cranes but at sea, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) delivers food and supplies. “RFA ships usually accompany the task groups and essentially, it is a shopping trolley that will come up to us, sit along side us, and we will either transfer it via mechanical aid or use Sea King or Merlin helicopters,” says Kirwan.
Chef George Addison is in charge of the catering account on board HMS Dauntless, planning the weekly menus. Banter on board means the sailors are happy to tell him what they think. “It is hard because you can’t please everyone,” he says. “You’re looking at an average of 200 people so you’re bound to have a small percentage that doesn’t like what’s on the menu. They tend to wait until the last minute, until it’s 7pm, and then start whinging at you. It is hard work.”
When awful weather stops the chefs using the fryers, they churn out stews. “You get some people who whinge, but they’re the people who’ve been in bed all day because it’s too rough. And then you’ve got poor chef in the corner who’s been dodging pots and pans all day and is going to get moaned at.”
Food is definitely used as a tool to boost morale and the chefs will sometimes put barbecues on the flight deck. “If you get told you were going to go to a foreign port and that gets cancelled at short notice because of other priorities, things like flight deck barbecues will boost people back up again,” says Addison.
Dickinson agrees. “It is the time when someone can switch off, sit down with their mates and just get away from that war environment and think about home,” he says. Over the coming year, Dickinson is focused on several new challenges. Purple Foodservice is opening a new warehouse in Helmand Province in Afghanistan this month to cater for the army. He also has his eyes on expanding the contract with the navy to cover foreign ports too.
The one time the navy does not source from Purple Foodservice is when it is in foreign ports. There, the navy has a contract with a company called MLS, which will arrange deliveries of food and supplies. Dickinson wants to take over this contract.
“We are currently in the middle of a trial,” he says. “We feel there is a cost advantage because of the way we operate, so the MOD would simply be paying the cost of the container, rather than the sometimes quite inflated price in the port. The other thing is, of course, the serviceman is getting product they recognise. If you try to buy bacon or sausage in Middle Eastern ports, it is unlikely you’ll get something that servicemen recognise. So we have run one trial and we will be running more.” Dickinson will find out next year if the MOD want to expand the contract.
In the meantime, he has his hands full. But the satisfaction he gets from his job is obvious. “I believe there is a lot of kudos in serving the MOD,” he says. “A lot of our staff, when asked who do you work for, say we’re looking after our boys on the ships and submarines in Afghanistan. There is a lot of pride in it.”
SUPPLYING THE NATION’S SEA FORCES: HOW PURPLE FOODSERVICE MAKES MONEY
The main contract for supplying the armed forces was won by Purple Foodservice in 2006 from previous supplier 3663. The company’s structure is unusual. Formed specifically to try to win the contract from the MOD, Purple Foodservice is a corporate vehicle created by three other foodservice businesses - DBC Foodservice, Supreme Foodservice and Vestey Foods.
One of the reasons the navy chefs are able to cook to such tight budgets is because Purple Foodservice makes no profit on the food it supplies. The profit generated for the three partner companies is made by billing the MOD for the logistics costs. “One of the reasons we won the contract is the business model,” says Dickinson.
“If I buy a sack of potatoes for £2.50 I will sell it to the MOD for £2.50, whether I sell it to a ship in Portsmouth harbour or to a kitchen in Afghanistan it goes to them at exactly the same price.”
Accounts filed at Companies House show Purple Foodservice operates a low profit model. The company made a pre-tax profit of just £87,926 on a turnover of £176.7m in the year to 30 September 2009. The contract has recently been extended to 2013 and the MOD will decide next year whether or not to grant a further two-year extension.
The structure also allows Purple Foodservice to buy its goods wherever it chooses. “We have within our agreements the authority to determine where the goods are purchased from, so if any of our partners are charging too much we could look elsewhere, and that keeps everyone on a tight rope.”
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