The Navy wants enlisted sailors to be able to use their meal cards at restaurants on base — including chains like McDonald’s or Panera Bread.
The service is currently testing a pilot program at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Washington where sailors can swipe their meal cards at Navy-branded food spots like Bombers Fresh Mex, which is the “equivalent of a Chipotle,” Vice Adm. Scott Gray, commander of Navy Installations Command, told reporters on Wednesday. The hope is to expand this program and eventually allow sailors to use their meal entitlements at chain restaurants on post.
“If the Navy Exchange contracts with McDonald’s on the base or with a Panera Bread on the base, or whatever that is, they can take their card and their meal allowance is, let’s say it’s $17 for dinner, they can go and they can order their dinner,” Gray said.
Currently, enlisted sailors living on post get meal entitlements that cover three meals at the galleys. These entitlements are deducted automatically from their pay. If they miss a meal or go off post to eat, that money is simply gone, as if it “evaporated,” Gray explained. Under the current meal allowance plan, sailors don’t necessarily know how much money they have per meal since they swipe to enter the galley, eat, and then leave.
But with the new system that Navy officials hope to implement, sailors will have to budget their meal entitlements based on prices at food spots outside of the galley.
“[The sailor] doesn’t know how much it costs him or what the justification is for, and he just goes and swipes his card and gets what he wants to eat,” Gray said. “As you expand options to other venues, and there’s a fixed amount of entitlement that you can carry over to that, then they want to understand, ‘OK, I’m going to Bomber’s and my favorite burrito is $14.50 and I wanna get a drink and so the total is $17.’ And then he wants to know, ‘Is my entitlement gonna cover it?’ Or ‘[If] it’s not gonna cover it, am I willing to pay a dollar more to get what I want?’”
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The pilot program is part of a slew of initiatives inspired by college campuses across the military. The goal, according to Gray, is to give troops more options for what they eat, when and where.
“When my son went to college, I bought him a meal plan and they could eat in the
cafeteria or equivalent and they had a certain amount of funds set aside in their allowance to be able to go to Starbucks or Panera or whatever those participating organizations were,” Gray said. “We want to expand choice.”
The Navy is also increasing the hours its grab-and-go kiosks are open, and plans to revamp its galleys to offer more options, from international cuisine to vegan dishes. On Friday, the Navy opened an upgraded galley at Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport, Mississippi.
The hope, officials said, is to encourage junior enlisted sailors to eat on base instead of spending money off post.
“I don’t know if you Uber-Eated McDonald’s recently, but a McDonald’s meal will cost you $12 and then the fee to get it to you and maybe another $15 if you do that. Three times a day, that’s a lot of money for a young person, and so we want to make our expanded options attractive to our sailors so that they use it,” Gray said. “We’re looking to ensure that our utilization rate goes up and then the sailors are taking better advantage of their entitlement because it’s a significant portion of their compensation and when they’re not using it, they’re not helping themselves financially.”
The Navy anticipates rolling out new programs to nine bases in 2027. To transform the Navy’s entire enterprise food, Gray estimated it could take 18 to 24 months, or longer after lessons learned from the pilots.
