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THE FUTURE OF THE MOBILE KITCHEN TRAILER

Colin Parkinson

Army.ca Myth
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They feel the need to fit shipping container dimensions is important. I suspect a nice to have to a degree, but very constraining. Perhaps 3 levels of mobile kitchens? A small trailer to provide food to a smaller unit and to supplement the IMP's, the MKT and then a larger more stationary one made up of multiple shipping containers?


1. The purpose of this service paper is to identify the required capabilities of future
CA fresh feeding platforms. It will demonstrate that future feeding capabilities must be
safe, mobile, flexible, adaptable and capable of providing a variety of nutritious foods in
all environments. Additionally, it must be easy to deploy and easy to operate. It will aim
to provide guidance for future feeding capability procurement.
 
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😉
 
I'll give a more detailed post later but I'll say this, a PLS mounted mobile kitchen would do wonders towards capability increases for our cooks. By that I mean equipment, since the current kitchen trailer was created a great many pieces of equipment have been invented or made cheaper for use in commercial operations and modernizing our field kitchens we could increase our efficiency and potentially feed more with the same number of cooks. Our current trailers are designed to feed 250ppl at a time, I have done 700 out of a similar sized space with modern equipment. Now I'm not talking fancy digital ovens and such but miniaturization has come a long way for kitchen equipment.
 
I went through the flying kitchens mounted on trucks to the MKT. The Truck mounted were more suited for the mobile tactical situation, whereas the MKT were better where it was safe and the cooks could work more efficiently.
 
I'll give a more detailed post later but I'll say this, a PLS mounted mobile kitchen would do wonders towards capability increases for our cooks.
We have them, that is the SEV based model Godin is discussing. That said they do not work while loaded on trucks and based on the size of trucks we are procuring won't be able to in the future. The current SEVs take significantly longer to set up than MKTs and while they can use diesel have been exclusively using AVPOL which is significantly harder to source within a CMBG and almost next to impossible in PRes context without reducing your flexibility by converting one of your other fuelling vehs. It removed the need to source propane and have a dedicated propane truck but that gain is significantly outweighed by the potential loss of a re-fuelling veh dedicated to AVGAS, which is ok if you have Tac Hel or other aviation assets (however MKTs would not be the priority in that case).

In terms of throughput they seem ok but it wasn't significantly better than a MKT (or a series of them pushed together) but the equipment was more modern
They feel the need to fit shipping container dimensions is important. I suspect a nice to have to a degree, but very constraining. Perhaps 3 levels of mobile kitchens? A small trailer to provide food to a smaller unit and to supplement the IMP's, the MKT and then a larger more stationary one made up of multiple shipping containers?


1. The purpose of this service paper is to identify the required capabilities of future
CA fresh feeding platforms. It will demonstrate that future feeding capabilities must be
safe, mobile, flexible, adaptable and capable of providing a variety of nutritious foods in
all environments. Additionally, it must be easy to deploy and easy to operate. It will aim
to provide guidance for future feeding capability procurement.
I am of the opposite mind as we don't need more resources to maintain, we already have:
MKT = Small
SEV = Small to Med

Both of which can be combined to create larger kitchens if needed for any domestic large scale operation

For larger installations we have the RCT based kitchens (in two sizes IIRC) which while older and need installation time can serve significantly more people and are in essence are proper kitchens. They are strategic assets so unlikely to be seen in a domestic context as they do need significant resources and proper planning to set-up, run and maintain (set-up especially).


The new mobile kitchen will likely be seacan/TEU based which is unfortunate in my opinion as a trailer base system with its own vehicle will allow it to remain semi autonomous and carry much of its own supplies including food and water. I have done and seen a few slick feeding operations where a MKT would deploy with a Coy grp and be able to give them 1-2 fresh feeds a day for 36-72 hours before needing to be swapped out or replenished
 
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Always thought the old 2 1/2 Flying Kitchen was best for unit B ech vehicles for Sqn, Coy and Bty units. Quick to set up which allowed for rapid feeding. Trailer less so and PLS mounted would be cumbersome.
 
Dumb question is there any cross over to how we run galleys on ships? They have different footprints, but there is a lot of experience there at prepping food and serving for 250+ people three times a day in a small space.
 
Dumb question is there any cross over to how we run galleys on ships? They have different footprints, but there is a lot of experience there at prepping really good food and serving for 250+ people three times a day in a small space.

There, FTFY :)
 
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