Available selections include 33 entrees, six starches, nine types of vegetables, nine desserts and an appetizer. This variety gives people a choice and allows them to better plan their meals. Food is quick-frozen at minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit to guarantee freshness while eliminating the need for food preservatives. This makes meals even healthier, he added. Air Force Space Command's three missile wings and one missile group place their food orders every three weeks.
Food is mass-produced in daily cycles using preapproved recipes.
Every eight weeks, the frozen meals are shipped by commercial trucks to the missile bases, who then deliver them to the chefs working in the remote missile alert facilities. Although food comes in its own heatable packages, chefs make the extra effort to serve meals on dishes along with milk, fresh bread and other amenities to make them even more appealing, Mr. Almodovar said. Although Iron Eagle has been a mainstay in the Air Force since the early days of the ICBM alert force, the shrinking missile fleet has caused the facility staff to look at the impact these changes will cause. At that time, Iron Eagle Foods was a 24-hour operation with 32 employees producing 50,000 to 60,000 containers a week. Within the next couple of years, our customer base will shrink to only three missile wings.