Defence Catering, Retail & Leisure
Feeding the Forces
Sodexo’s defence catering, retail and leisure facilities have been developed to serve the needs of the Whole Force, based on our many years of customer insight. We create award-winning social spaces, develop tasty globally-influenced menus, and recruit and train highly-skilled, passionate people to deliver best-in-class military dining.
From high-street style restaurants to casual coffee bars and freshly made takeaway items, we are fuelling the modern military across all types of site, schedule and shift pattern.
Our Services
Good food doesn’t need to be complicated. We aim to offer value, variety, fresh flavours, and a good mix of healthy and indulgent options. Our services are there whenever and however our customers need them, and always come with a smile.
Cooking & Dining
From nostalgic comfort food to global bowls and plant-based plates that pack a real taste punch, Sodexo's menu options set the standard for modern, high-street style dining. We design our eating environments to be friendly social spaces, in the knowledge that eating will always be a social occasion for our guests.
Shopping & Retail
Convenience is a must on-site, particularly in rural areas without mainstream supermarket provision. Our retail offer aims to deliver a wide range of everyday essentials, as well as out-of-hours hot food and coffee, ensuring service personnel are able to access everything they need to enjoy life on base.
Messing Provision
Sodexo teams are old hands when it comes to messing. We deliver functions and events of all sizes and requirements, and for our junior ranks we provide a fun, stimulating environment complemented with social activities and varied options for recreation, video-gaming and viewing sports events.
Convenience and Grab & Go
Sometimes our customers need to eat on the run, between commitments or whilst multi-tasking. Our Grab & Go options include breakfast pots, salad boxes, soups and hot pots, sweet and savoury pastries, traybakes and cakes, as well as bean-to-cup coffee and specialty teas. We can also offer self-cook facilities.
Our Values
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Great Value
With affordably priced meal deals and promotions complementing well-balanced, consistently sized portions, we offer great value-for-money.
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Fresh
Our menus are just as fresh as our ingredients, delivering balanced, tasty food - served as healthy options or indulgent favourites.
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Speedy
Our menu options and labelling are easy to understand, and our restaurant design and speed of delivery help to ease decision-making and reduce queues.
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Friendly
Our friendly team and service style provide a warm, relaxing and welcoming dining experience, re-fuelling personnel for their next task.
Building Customer-Led Solutions by Design
Sodexo has considerable experience in creating and deploying insight-led solutions across our portfolio, listening to the customer and building products, services, and experiences around their needs.
Mindful Active
Our app and on-site materials support health and well-being, guiding customers towards the right option for their physical and mental needs.
Modern Flavours
Our global bowls and plant-based plates are inspired by modern cuisines and punchy flavours that are sure to inspire and delight.
Technology Enablement
Technology enhances the lived experience for all our customers, from finding out what’s on the menu to learning about services at their site.
Fuelling the Modern Military
Nostalgic Comfort
Global Bowls
Plant Powered
Grab & Go
The Future of Military Dining
We’ve worked closely with the Army EATS initiative to understand and cater for the needs of today’s – and tomorrow’s – personnel. In 2022 we launched two new pilot sites – find out more about Army EATS and Sodexo’s approach in this short film.
Kitchen Works Co. at ATR Winchester
Sodexo is bringing the best of high-street style dining to the military environment with our approach to the future of military dining. As part of the pioneering Army EATS programme, ‘Junior Ranks Dining by Kitchen Works Co.’ is a fresh, modern take on messing, offering seasonal, global flavours delivered as plated meals as well as grab-and-go.
This dining solution delivers on value-for money, nutritional needs, and an elevated lived experience for the modern military.
Feeding Your Health & Wellbeing
Physical and mental health is an intrinsic part of personnel’s lived experience in the military, and has never been more important to new recruits – particularly body-conscious Generation Z.
Our nutrition and wellbeing tool Mindful Active delivers helpful signposting and food labelling on-site and via an app, across four key pillars:
- FUEL – the body for whatever lies ahead
- FOCUS – on your performance goals
- PERFORM – boost your energy levels
- RECOVER – re-energise post-training
Village for the whole force
Designed to create connections, build community and foster morale, Village is a multifunctional social hub that incorporates one stop catering, retail and leisure facilities and puts the wellbeing of service personnel at the heart of life on base.
First introduced at Worthy Down Station, Village is a scalable, flexible solution designed to benefit the whole force and integrate with the specific needs of each site and its customers.
Our Brands & Partners
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Junior Ranks Dining
Our core and retail catering offer for junior ranks includes much-loved family favourites as well as modern global flavours.
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JRD by Kitchen Works Co.
Developed as part of Army EATS, JRD by Kitchen Works Co. delivers great value fresh flavours as plated meals and grab-and-go.
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The Common Room
A premium café and dining facility, The Common Room provides a relaxed environment for all ranks to enjoy refreshments and meals.
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Coffee & Co.
A well-known brand across our Defence sites, Coffee & Co. serves great-tasting coffee alongside snacks and chilled drinks.
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Aspretto
This high-quality brand is a firm favourite with service personnel, serving bean-to-cup fresh coffee with tasty bakes and healthy snacks.
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Crussh
We’re proud to partner with London-based Crussh, a healthy food retailer on a mission to improve the nation’s wellbeing.
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Costcutter
Competitively priced convenience goods and a useful line of everyday Defence essentials make Costcutter a valued retail service on-site.
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The Junction
This new coffee and retail offer seamlessly blends shopping and socialising for an elevated high-street style experience.
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Village
Inclusive messing featuring gaming booths, self-cook facilities and a calendar of fun activities makes Village the perfect social venue.
7,000,000
meals served annually
We serve a staggering 7 million meals in our dining facilities across our British Armed Forces sites each year, equating to almost 25,000 meals every single day. They say ‘an army marches on its stomach’ – we say, let’s cook!
Improving the Health of Service Personnel
Food is more than fuel; as well as being fundamental to operational outputs, it can have a significant impact on recruitment and retention, and is a vital building block of a healthy, capable force. Healthy eating is especially important for active service personnel, who burn more calories and need to be more physically fit than the general population; and Generation Z have high expectations when it comes to both food and service delivery.
Explore five ways to improve the health of service personnel with this infographic.
Developing Social Value in Defence
Our Social Value Strategy outlines our key commitments to People, Planet, Places and Partners, helping to create a greener, healthier, safer and more prosperous society for all across the UK & Ireland.
How to improve quality of life for military personnel
3 Ways Technology can Enhance the Lived Experience on Base
Delivering Social Value in Defence
Supporting the wellbeing of the whole force through Soft FM
How to foster a sense of community unlike anything else
Food on base: What service personnel want and need
How the right physical spaces can improve the morale of military personnel
Supporting SSAFA's mentoring scheme
