The Defence Forces Context

Introduction

The Defence Forces is a Tri-Force made up of the Naval Service, Air Corps and Army encompassing 9500 all ranks. The organisation is a self-supporting environment involving internal administration, logistic, security, accommodation, transportation; recreation and catering which all contribute to the overall high inventory of the Defence Forces.

This research aims to provide a positive contribution towards the Defence Forces and its recoding programme, through carefully organised and controlled research, scrutinising relevant pieces of NATO and National legislation dealing with the codification process, conducting secondary research to compare different approaches, explore different methods and learn from other people’s experiences. Questionnaires on procurement awareness, knowledge and practices within the Defence Forces will be carried out to help provide data to contribute towards building a positive new recoding programme.

The National Policy and Waste Management Planning enforced by the Department of the Environment, & Community and Local Government (DoEHLG) have primary responsibility for waste policy and legislation (McCarthy et al, 2010) in respect of food waste management. It is imperative that the Defence Forces meet these legal requirements effectively as well as economically and environmentally.

Military Catering

The Defence Forces feeding plan entails a minimum of three meals per day at each of its installations throughout the country. There are currently eighteen installations occupied by the Defence Forces, in which sixteen of them provide a feeding plan with twenty six dining facilities between them. The feeding plan changes frequently and extra meals may be required due to operational or training requirements, which may require the feeding of troops outside of normal timings or at other locations by means of fresh food being transported in thermoports (containers that maintain food stuffs at recommended temperatures for long periods of time both hot and cold).

Cahill, 2010 said, when the operational situation dictates that it is not practical to provide fresh meals, the military utilise individual food packages commonly known as ration packs. The most common ration packs used are the individual ration packs which supply the soldier with a mixture of dry foods and retort pouches, as well as condiments and sanitary items for a 24 hour period. Ration packs are designed to be stored on the soldier’s personnel kit.