Author | Lightnews

Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jul 4

We survived thanks to those who stayed without questions. Triple pay earned.
Launched an emergency menu — fewer dishes, fewer disasters. Still had broken ovens, sour buckwheat, and surprise shortages at 2 a.m. Fixed it on the go.
14,899 meals done. Everything shipped. Everyone alive. Probably.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jul 4

#MFAkitchenlog2025
Week 25 started before the last one ended. Night blended into morning, sleep into shifts. We cooked tons, shot videos, rewrote the menu — then logistics hit. One dish was hot, another missing, the whole line froze. Chaos.

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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 23

This week’s packaging totals:
Main dishes: 10,059 portions
Breakfasts: 3,162 portions
Desserts: 1,065 portions
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 23

The chef conducts, gives rank lectures, somewhere there’s a job interview.
People vanish, work doesn’t. Sinks, grime, confusion, no one reports anything, but somehow it all gets done. Fridge party closes the week. New menu, leftovers, shoots, meetings ahead.

Tomorrow will be cute. Probably.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 23

#MFAkitchenlog2025 week24
The plan? Written. Read? Never.

Potatoes wait while dishes get washed, timing slips, portioning spills into the night. Pasta, rice, bacon, desserts — chaos in motion. Some cook, some freeze, some perform drama when corrected.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 9

This week’s packaging totals:
Main dishes: 10,232 portions
Breakfasts: 3,135 portions
Desserts: 1,060 portions
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 9

Thursday lived up to its reputation. To keep packaging running without delays, the shift lead cooked pasta solo so fast that the ice machine couldn’t keep up with cooling it.
On Friday, we had a handover between senior staff — the new one is now getting the hang of the updated planning system.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 9

The Chef is actively helping with planning, improving resource management, and bringing in new ideas. For example, we’re now replacing all the old potatoes in our dishes with new-season ones — it saves a lot of time and effort. Although, boiling 420 kg of potatoes nonstop, solo, isn’t exactly easy.

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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 9

#MFAkitchenlog2025 week23
On Monday, while doing inventory, we uncovered quite a few surprises — things “lost” during the previous week. The shift lead was very vocal about it and spent a lot of time re-setting the entire workflow after their predecessors.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 9

but the team managed well and even started training newcomers.

Moving forward, we plan to reduce the packaging workload and improve internal communication.

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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 9

Our drivers covered around 50300 kilometers during this month.

Due to a shortage of cooks, the team worked extended hours, often staying late into the night, and conducted interviews to hire new staff. The last week was tough due to poor quality ingredients,
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 9

#MFAkitchenlog2025 MAY
Over the course of five weeks, we delivered over 74,000 meal portions to the military and packaged nearly the same amount.

We faced many challenges: deep cleaning until late at night, record-setting packaging days, improving bread baking and pasta preparation techniques.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 3

What’s next:
Keep training newbies — the hot line needs heroes.
Plan to ease packaging on Thursday because right now it feels like a survival battle.
And the classic: fix communication.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 3

But there are wins: we still managed to prepare well for Thursday, worked ahead, and packaging went through without a total nervous breakdown. Also, muffins hit the road — the dispenser came back to life, and we found the molds.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 3

New stuff — we fried fish. It’s not like frying cutlets — takes longer, feels more tedious, and has a bit of a sea smell. There was a slight communication glitch too — slicing was done according to whoever understood it how, resulting in a Tetris-like shortage of ingredients.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 3

Dishwashing was the classic thriller: four people against a mountain of dirty dishes that just wouldn’t shrink. We often ran late, but most stayed voluntarily because everyone knows half-cleaned dishes today mean double trouble tomorrow.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 3

here’s the good news — we got someone who’s not only unafraid of the stove but also helps others keep up.

Packaging on Thursday and Friday was the usual endurance marathon. The raw materials arrived, but some were low quality, so we got creative swapping medallions for cutlets.
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · Jun 3

#MFAkitchenlog2025 Week22
Total packaged:
Main courses: 8,288 portions
Breakfasts: 3,200 portions
Desserts: 1,011 portions

This week we survived — sometimes just by willpower, sometimes on pure momentum, but we made it. The hot line was barely breathing without enough people, but
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · May 26

In total, during the week:
– we delivered 14,206 ready to eat meals to our units
– packed 14,385 portions.

#frontlinekitchen #foundation #militaryfood #readytoeat
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · May 26

We held interviews (we’re still in critical need of cooks), cooked, packed meals, and even stayed overnight a few times to meet the plan (the senior cook finished work at 4 a.m., went home at 6, and came back to the base by 11).
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · May 26

#MFAkitchenlog2025 Week21

Last week was quite intense and difficult. According to the shift supervisor, "it’s been a long time since so much happened in one day — more than during a whole rotation."
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · May 26

😅😅

Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · May 26

🫂

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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · May 19

By the way, this week we (almost) consistently managed to go home around midnight, instead of 2–3 a.m. like last week.

#frontlinekitchen #foundation #militaryfood #readytoeat
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Magic Food Army @magicfoodarmy.bsky.social · May 19

Monday was dedicated to preparing for packaging: we got almost everything ready for 4 dishes (about 85% of what's needed). Thanks to this solid prep, we managed to pack 4,342 portions on Tuesday. We kept the same pace on Wednesday to pack 4,424 portions on Thursday.
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