The Kirya diner
Central IDF base privatizes its cafeteria, leaving hungry soldiers lining up outside its door. ‘With food like this, there’s no reason to eat out,’ soldier says
It is only 11:30 am, but a long line of uniform-clad soldiers already stretches outside the Kirya army base in Tel Aviv. Since the cafeteria is now managed by private catering everyone wants to gets there early and secure a good spot at the table.
The Israel Defense Forces have long planned to privatize their kitchens and cafeterias, leaving them in the hands of private catering companies in lieu of the timeless army cooks.
Now, new and improved IDF cuisine, dished out by the Idit company, co-owned by the Dan Hotel Chain, as well as two other private catering companies, is being served not only at the Kirya base, but also the Tzrifin army base, the Israel Air Force base, and the Army Personnel Management base in Ramat Gan.
Where as army personnel expected the soldiers to appreciate the new cuisine, even they did not expect it to be such a rousing success. The number of diners in IDF cafeteria’s climbed by a whopping 100%, from 2,500 diners daily to 5,500.
Soldiers, like workers in most Israeli high-tech companies, swipe their ID cards when entering the base dinning hall, and receive a voucher paying for their meal. The more soldiers eat in the dinning halls, the more the army pays the catering companies, and so they strive to make the food as enticing as possible.
IDF soldiers could not be happier with the dining changes. Ido and Matan, two IDF officers, confess that they would not go anywhere near the dining halls until the catering companies took over. “Since the new dining hall opened, we eat there instead of brining our lunch from home,” they said.
Noam, a fellow soldier also serving in the Kirya, said that he has also forgone his traditional afternoon falafel or hamburger in favor of the new army cuisine. “The food is great, and it’s nice and clean. I don’t eat out anymore,” he said.
Best of all, busy soldiers can now also opt for a “fast food” option, grabbing a salad, or fries and quick meal and then quickly returning to their office to work. “It’s great, I save NIS 22 (about $6.50) a day by just grabbing a salad at the base,” said Sivan, another satisfied soldier.
Costly changes
The army did not foresee the new dinning halls being such a rousing success. Colonel Golan Maymon, Commander of the Kirya base, stated that “we expected the number of diners to rise around 20%, from roughly 2,600 soldiers each day to maybe 3,400. However the number of diners increased by 100%, to some 5,500 soldiers each day. That’s an additional 2,500 soldiers that now prefer to stay at the base for lunch.”
The changes won’t come cheap for the IDF, which will have to shell out the money to feed all of these additional hungry soldiers. “We took that into account when we started this undertaking,” said Colonel David Even-Sapir who spearheaded this new dining project.
“Our primary goal is to encourage soldiers to eat at the base instead of going out for lunch.”
The IDF now plans to revamp the dinning halls in 33 additional bases by the end of 2008. Whereas combat units cannot enjoy this improved cuisine due to logistical difficulties, they too will receive far better food products with which to prepare their meals.
Reuven Weiss contributed to this article
