Tag: commissaries

This should lead to fresher produce for customers:

Produce at U.S. bases in South Korea was temporarily in short supply as the Defense Commissary Agency began replacing U.S. imports of certain fruits and vegetables with their locally grown counterparts.

Commissaries plan this month to start stocking “the highest quality” local fruits and vegetables that are “consistent with what is available in commercial grocery stores,” U.S. Army Garrison Daegu announced in a Facebook post Oct. 29.

These include apples, potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes, radishes, pumpkins, kale, leeks, green onions, tomatoes, pomegranates, persimmons, citrus and grapes from the United States, along with squash from Mexico, DeCA spokesman Keith Desbois said by email Friday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is a Korean product that will now be available in USFK commissaries:

CJ CheilJedang has begun selling its new dumpling products inside United States military bases in Korea, where dumplings with Korean meat are prohibited. Personnel there are forced to import from the U.S. in accordance with military regulations, said the country’s major food company, Monday.

CJ has recently released three new vegan dumpling products into the market here. With its latest move, the company said it has acquired more flexibility regarding its shipments to USFK bases which, up until now, had depended solely on Schwan’s Company, its American subsidiary.

CJ on Sunday launched its new Giant Dumpling product with original, japchae and kimchi flavors under Bibigo, the company’s flagship brand for frozen dumplings. Prior to the launch, the company hosted a tasting event for the products at USFK bases for three days starting Friday. One soldier who tasted the japchae-flavored dumplings said that it tasted just like a dumpling that had ground beef in it, according to the company.

The company stacked the products in commissaries of four USFK facilities in Korea. For security reasons, the U.S. military declined to identify which bases have chosen to stock the products. Each product is priced at $6.43.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

As is often the case, in an effort to save money increased costs were pushed on to servicemembers and their families:

The Defense Commissary Agency has saved tens of millions of dollars shipping produce to the Pacific since 2015. However, a recent inspector general report says the agency failed to provide effective oversight of its new contracts, leaving customers paying significantly more for fresh fruits and vegetables.

In the past, DeCA subsidized contractors’ produce shipments to commissaries in Japan and South Korea, costing the agency about $114.6 million from 2013 to 2015, the IG report said. When contracts were renegotiated in 2015, DeCA stopped paying for shipping, instead aiming to purchase more locally grown produce and having suppliers foot those costs.

Since then, DeCA has saved about $38 million per year.

After the deal was made, prices for fresh produce climbed at Pacific commissaries, according to the report. Between November 2015 and April 2017, customers in mainland Japan paid 20.9 percent more for produce. Over the same period, Okinawa customers saw an increase of 23.6 percent while those in South Korea paid 31.5 percent more.

The report’s findings were based on a review of prices for 239 unique fresh produce items in mainland Japan, 237 on Okinawa and 231 in South Korea.

The 2015 contract’s aim was to keep the quality and cost of produce on base comparable to what they were before the contract, but the IG report says those expectations were not met. It blamed DeCA for the price hike, saying the agency’s “market research did not adequately evaluate the feasibility of obtaining fresh produce items from in-country for DeCA commissaries in the Pacific theater.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

For soldiers stationed at Camp Humphreys they now have the honor of shopping at the US military’s largest overseas commissary:

The U.S. military’s largest overseas commissary officially opened for business Wednesday at the Eighth Army’s new home on the Korean Peninsula.

The $15.1 million, 89,491-square-foot store is four and a half times the size of Camp Humphreys’ old commissary, which had reached its limit in supporting a population that has ballooned from 7,000 to 26,000 and will soon peak to more than 40,000.

“This is the best commissary I’ve ever seen and I’ve been around for a long time,” Eighth Army commander Lt. Gen. Michael Bills said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday. “This is a work of art.”

As shoppers checked out the store for the first time, a taekwondo demonstration team kicked wooden planks in front of stacks of pudding boxes and South Korean girls in traditional dress danced in the aisles.  [Stars and Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Be thankful you don’t have to shop in a ROK military commissary because according to the below article Korean food manufacturers are known for selling tainted food products to ROK military servicemembers:

A dead lizard was found in a can of candy sold at a commissary on a military base, prompting public outrage against lax food safety regulations.

This latest incident comes amid a growing number of complaints filed over the safety of food sold at military camps, according to data made public by a lawmaker.

In a report filed with Rep. Kim Hack-yong of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party by the Ministry of National Defense Welfare Agency, 89 cases of tainted food were reported from January 2013 to early this month. Kim sits on the National Assembly Defense Committee.

The number of reports has increased over the years with 16 cases reported in 2013, 17 in 2014, 21 in 2015 and 22 in 2016.

Besides the dead lizard, hair, chicken feathers, maggots, ticks, pieces of plastic bags, and nuts and bolts were also found in various packaged food products, the report said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but authorities will not even publish the names of the companies that sold the tainted products.  It seems that naming these companies would be enough of a threat to their business to ensure that they increase food safety procedures for products going to ROK military commissaries.