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QRMC proposes military discounts at grocery stores

The idea of national and regional grocers giving military discounts might be welcomed by families living off base — but one military advocate worries about how such a move might affect the commissary benefit.

In its latest report, the 10th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation suggests that the Pentagon ask national and regional grocers to offer military discounts to service members.

“This would address some of the problems of people who have no access to commissaries, such as reservists, recruiters, ROTC instructors at universities, where they’re nowhere near any installations,” said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Denny Eakle, 10th QRMC executive director.

Defense officials say service members save 30 percent, on average, by shopping regularly at commissaries compared with off-base stores. Eakle said discounts under the 10th QRMC proposal probably would not be “nearly as steep. But if they didn’t have to spend so much on gas to get [to a commissary], they actually might benefit by this.”

The QRMC study noted that at Naval Station Pascagoula, Miss., which has no commissary, the Navy already has negotiated with two local grocery chains to give discounts to military families.

A spokesman for one national military advocacy group said the idea initially sounds appealing.

“The QRMC recommendation has merit, on the face of it,” said Joe Barnes, national executive director for the Fleet Reserve Association and a co-chairman of the Military Coalition, a group of more than 30 military- and veterans-related associations.

“However, there are a number of things going on with delivering the [commissary] benefit” that the QRMC may not be aware of, said Barnes, who has commissary privileges and is a member of the Defense Commissary Agency Patron Council.

Barnes said DeCA already provides products to beneficiaries not living near commissaries through programs such as on-site sales, in which goods are trucked to service members who don’t live near commissaries — at Reserve or National Guard facilities, for example — and sold in case lots.

However, the QRMC’s recommendation was made not just in an effort to improve commissary services, but also with an eye on the bottom line. The study said the Pentagon “should evaluate whether commissaries improve recruiting and retention, and whether they do so in an efficient, rational, cost-effective manner.”

The commissary system, a staple of military life, has often come under fire. In 2003, the Pentagon proposed closing as many as 35 stores; the Congressional Budget Office often suggests closing both commissaries and exchanges, and giving troops a pay increase equal to the value of those benefits.