The U.S. Army Defense Supply Center Is Looking for Local Contractors

10/16/2009

The Defense Supply Center Philadelphia under the U.S. Army Contracting Office Europe will visit Bulgaria at the period November 1-3, 2009 to identify potential local suppliers to support TF-E rotations or any exercises in the region.

The supply chain procures:
Class I (Subsistence)
Class II (Clothing and Textiles)
Class IV (Construction and barrier material)
Class VIII (Medical supplies)

For subsistence products, each facility that produces food items for the U.S. military must be approved by the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps. This approval process requires a detailed in-facility sanitation audit of the facilities, processes and products. It evaluates the facility and operational sanitation, production methods, raw material sources, facility construction, equipment, quality assurance and laboratory testing, cleaning and sanitizing, pest control, employee training and health and food defense measures. Based on U.S. regulations and guidelines and the approval process, they need to focus on vendors who distribute fresh fruits and vegetables, bottled beverages and fruit juices, bakery items and potentially dried pasta type items as these are the most likely to successfully go through the certification process. They could also look at dairy items, although these are typically harder to pass VETCOM inspection. Items such as meats and poultry will not be considered at this time.

For lumber and construction materials, they are looking at lumber and plywood, cement/concrete, rebar and other building material.

The team includes food safety and quality assurance specialist, subsistence specialist, construction and barrier material specialist and external operations.

Meetings with local suppliers will be arranged at 2-3 November only. If you are willing to enter the list of interested vendors please call Nadejda Vakareeva at the AmCham office on telephone +359 2 9742 744/5 or e-mail: nadia@amcham.bg