Committed to bringing together potential federal contractors across industries, the North Carolina Military Business Center (NCMBC) has announced a returning opportunity to connect with government buyers. 

The Federal Food Symposium (FFS) is slated to bring food vendors, food science researchers and federal military and defense contracting officials together at Fayetteville Technical Community College this fall.

The event will be hosted by the NCMBC, the Office of US Senator Thom Tillis, the Office of Senator Ted Budd and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 

The FFS will feature keynote remarks, conversations with federal officials and subsistence industry leaders and networking opportunities for industry players to forge new business relationships.

NCMBC Executive Director Scott Dorney described the event as a chance to connect with both the federal government and private enterprise.

"This is an opportunity, like all of our events, to bring buyers and research and development entities on the government side together with suppliers on the industry side,” he noted. 

For local producers, the event will signify a learning opportunity in the world of government contracting.

“Understanding how the government acquires that food through prime vendors or other purposes, will help our producers understand the system and sell more,” Dorney said.

This is particularly important, Dorney emphasized, because the agriculture and food production industry is the one that makes the most money in North Carolina.

“It brings in over $90 billion a year,” he said. “Luckily, the military buys food, so we can tap into what is the largest industry sector in North Carolina. So we’re tapping into that biggest industry sector in North Carolina, and [into] our research and development, where we have some really unique research elements in North Carolina. We’re able, through this event, to connect not only our growers and our food producers, but our research and development community with the appropriate folks from the Department of Defense (U.S. DoD), all within this biggest industry sector in our state.”

SOME OF THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND PUBLIC OFFICES THAT WILL HAVE REPRESENTATIVES AT THE EVENT INCLUDE:

• The offices of U.S. Senators Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, both of whom represent North Carolina.
• The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).
• The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA).
• U.S. Department of Justice.
• Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Dorney said the diversity of attendees will make the event, which runs from Nov. 19-20, engaging to everyone in the industry. 

“It’s not just the government speakers up there,” Dorney said. “We’ll have people from the industries of retail food, tactical rations and troop feeding. We are going to have speakers talking about when and how they acquire food. But we also have industry speakers who are either current contract holders or prospective contract holders, and speakers doing research and development in food science on these panels. It will be a great way to stimulate conversation. We really want to engage the industry.”

Beyond the panels, attendees may have the opportunity to tour one of the two commissary grocery stores at Fort Liberty. This tour is still pending approval.

“Monthly sales of the very large commissaries on Fort Liberty, which include a North Carolina products section, typically exceed millions,” Dorney said. “This tour will provide insight into the DeCA processes for receiving, displaying and selling fresh and packaged foods to active duty and retired military and their families.”

Similarly, the event will also feature a tour of the troop feeding Dining Facility at Fort Liberty. This tour is also still pending approval.

“This tour will orient participants to U.S. Army processes for ordering, receiving and preparing food for 50,000 soldiers that work on Fort Liberty every day,” Dorney said. “The tour – and other FFS sessions that address DLA subsistence contracting – will provide insight to attendees on opportunities to introduce products to the troop feeding supply chain.”

The event will also prove to be a good opportunity to learn about where big federal contracting entities like the U.S. Military are directing their food operations. In the case of the military, Dorney shared that attending the symposium will be especially beneficial for contracting companies when learning the necessary and sought-after innovations in the realm of tactical rations.

This year’s iteration will be the first time the FFS has been held in person since 2014. 

“We had one scheduled for 2020 which ended up getting canceled, so we had to do a virtual [event] in 2021,” Dorney said. “So this is the first time we’ve gotten the band back together for quite some time.”

While Dorney said that virtual events have their place, the networking potential of an in-person gathering is “irreplaceable.”

“So a company that comes to this, let's say they are an egg producer, they will learn how to introduce eggs into the commissary system for retail sale, they will understand how to go about getting their eggs into the dining facilities,” Dorney said. “Those 50,000 soldiers that eat breakfast every day, we want them eating North Carolina eggs. You can’t beat the opportunity if you’re a grower or a producer, or if you’re doing food science research at say NC State, to come and really talk to people one on one across a diverse government market.

More information on the FFS can be found online at: www.food.ncmbc.us 

**A decision has been made to postpone the Federal Food Symposium from Nov. 19-20, 2024, to the new date of April 1-2, 2025.