WINNERS!: Iditarod wins Hennessy Trophy 2012

  • Published
  • By Air Force Staff Sgt. Zachary Wolf
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The Iditarod Dining Facility won the 2012 John L. Hennessy Trophy award for "Best in Air Force Food Transformation."

The men and women who work there that you may see every day, as well as the ones who work behind the scenes, have made that possible.

The Hennessy Trophy award is an annual award presented to Air Force installations with the best food-service programs.

According to the Hennessy Travelers Association, the awards are based on the entire scope of an installation's food-service program.

Winners must display excellence in management effectiveness, force-readiness support, food quality, employee and customer relations, resource conservation, training and safety awareness, officials said.

"We all worked really hard to earn it," said Senior Airman Ellen Wilson, 673d Force Support Squadron food service accountant.

The struggle to be considered the best required the best.

"It's a competition that selects the best of the best in the Air Force," said Kevin Moore, 673d Force Support Squadron assistant dining facility manager.

The award is not just a high-level Air Force award, but benefits all who receive it if they decide to pursue the culinary career outside the military.

"This reward is even recognized the National Restaurant Association," Moore said.
One thing that the personnel at the Iditarod did a lot of before even submitting paperwork for the Hennessy was preparation.

"(We prepared by) getting all our personnel taught how to do cooking in the corporate field - how to do it on the outside.

We did that with partnership with Aramark with their execute chefs," Moore said.
It didn't just involve preparing food either.

For example, Wilson is in charge of all the meal cards on JBER - and that is just one small section of what she does.

"I just made sure my paperwork was perfect to the 'T' every day, (with) no mistakes and no discrepancies," Wilson said of her preparations.

The Iditarod filled out an Air Force Form 1206, which tells judges what they do in food service and what they have done throughout the year.

Air Force personnel may recognize this form as being the same one used to nominate troops for awards.

With the new Food Transformation Initiative, military and civilian personnel partnered with Aramark to learn the corporate side of dining.

"The Food Transformation Initiative is the new way the Air Force is leading," Moore said. "This is the new food system that the Air Force wants to convert all their dining facilities into."

An example of the FTI is that Airmen who use meal cards can use their card
to purchase food from places other than the dining facility - places like the Para-
dise Café in the Arctic Oasis.

JBER was selected as one of the six bases to test the FTI pilot program and has
now been in the process for a year and a half.

"We receive calls from other FTI bases on how we operate and how are things working for us," Moore said.

"We have actually had mess attendant project managers fly up and spend a week on board with our project managers to get a feel for how it is going - because their base is next in line to transition," Moore said.

A new program is sure to come with challenges, but the personnel involved overcame their challenge and with a big payoff that can be seen.

"Our headcounts have doubled and I think that's exciting," Wilson said.

"People want to come here now and it's not just the Airmen that are forced to come here; people are choosing to come here," Wilson said.

A military chow hall, mess hall, or dining facility used to be stigmatized as mediocre or sub-par food.

The Iditarod is changing that.

"The picture that people get of mundane military dining facilities is changing," Wilson said.

"Those days are gone and are going to fall by the wayside," Moore added. "This is the new look of Air Force food service."