Military commissaries could be privatized under Pentagon plan [View all]

The Pentagon is looking for commercial retailers to run commissaries on military bases in the latest push to privatize troops’ quality of life.

The Department of Defense wants to see if private commercial grocery operators or investment firms are willing and able to run 178 commissaries at military bases across the U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, according to a Request For Information, or RFI, posted to Sam.gov, the federal government’s website for contract opportunities.

Rob Evans, founder of Hots&Cots, a Yelp-like app for troops to rate and review base dining facilities and housing, said the broader privatization push has historical precedent with housing, but it’s unclear why commissaries are next.

“My understanding: you’re privatizing barracks and you’re privatizing dining facilities because there are these historical challenges. They did it with family housing because the military wanted to get out of that business and it was very challenging. We’re seeing the same kind of pattern with barracks and one could probably argue the same with dining facilities,” he said. “I don’t know what is the net gain here in privatizing commissaries.”

The Defense Commissary Agency runs 235 commissaries in 13 countries and two U.S. territories where nearly 1.8 million households shop each month, according to federal contracting documents.

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