The 2025 Federal Food Symposium will be held April 1-2 at Fayetteville Technical Community College’s Tony Rand Student Center.

The Federal Food Symposium, hosted by the Office of US Senator Thom Tillis, the Office of Senator Ted Budd, the North Carolina Military Business Center and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, connects the Department of Defense and federal subsistence buying and R&D agencies with food producers, growers and R&D entities in the southeast. 

NCMBC hosts six statewide summits each year and FFS is one of them. At the last GFBJ Power Breakfast, NCMBC Executive Director Scott Dorney mentioned that in North Carolina the industry that makes the most money is agriculture. 

“Food and agriculture is still the number one industry in our state…50,000 people eat breakfast at Fort Liberty every morning. We want them to eat North Carolina eggs and North Carolina bacon and all [that] stuff. And we also want those shoppers that go to the Defense Commissary to buy North Carolina products. So we're hosting at Fayetteville Tech, along with Fayetteville Tech, in early April, the Federal Food Symposium, because if you want to get your food in the commissary, you don't go to the commissary. You go to the Defense Commissary Agency that's in Richmond. If you want your eggs or your bacon or your dairy products in the dining facilities, those contracts all come from the Defense Logistics Agency in Philadelphia. So we're going to bring all those people to Fayetteville Tech. We're going to bring the growers and the food producers so they can learn how to get their products into the commissary and feeding our troops,” remarked Dorney.

Sessions include: 

• Retail Food Operations and Business Opportunities.
• Retail Food Opportunities: Brand and Non-Brand Products.
• Supply Chain and Research and Development for Tactical Rations.
• Subsistence Support to the Warfighter: Current and Future Challenges.
• Troop Feeding Operations and Business Opportunities
• Other Federal Agency and Department of Defense Opportunities. 

Presenters Include (but are not limited to): 

• Defense Commissary Agency
• Defense Logistics Agency, Troop Support
• DEVCOM Soldier Center Soldier Sustainment
• Army Field Support Battalion-Liberty, Fort Liberty, NC 
• Food Service and Subsistence Program, US Marine Corps Headquarters
• Seymour Johnson Air Force Base
• American Logistics Association
• North Carolina State University
• North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies
• And several industry representatives 

Registration and sponsorship opportunities are now available.  

The FFS was initially supposed to be held this November, but with the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene leadership decided it was best to postpone the event so that organizations and resources could remain focused on helping western NC. 

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