Of all the major sports in the world, no teams carry more players than a professional American football team. NFL teams have 53-man rosters, but that only accounts for those who make the active roster. There are also guys on the practice squad and injured reserve.
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When an NFL team hits the road for an away game, roughly 200 people are tagging along. At home, in their own facilities, that number can balloon up to become even higher. And one of the biggest challenges with such a large group, both in terms of number and size, is feeding them. That’s a lot of mouths to feed.
That’s why NFL teams make it a priority to ensure they have a smooth system dotted with experienced chefs and cooks to ensure their players are not only getting enough to eat, but getting good food to eat as well. The Los Angeles Chargers‘ executive chef at their L.A. facility, Joel Ramirez, recently broke down what it really takes to feed all of those hungry bear-men.
“We make sure that they receive the best quality ingredients, from fresh produce to the best quality protein, especially the amount of protein they consume a day. It’s about 600 pounds of protein or more. That’s including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks,” Ramirez said (via video posted on the Chargers’ YouTube channel).
Chargers director of performance nutrition, Grant Harris, chimed in, saying that they try to do business with local purveyors as often as they can. Harris emphasized that people truly have no idea how much time and organizing go into feeding dozens of burly NFL players on a daily basis.
“A lot goes into actually feeding a team beyond just what happens that you see. We sit down about once a week, and we’ll look at the menus. And review what we need to do in terms of, just making it approachable for practice, game-wise and everything,” Harris explained.
“They’re knowledgeable, they want to keep it on the healthy side too. So we get great questions every day from those guys as well. So we have to keep ourselves honest by keeping those products as high-quality as possible,” he added.
Ramirez and his chefs create a menu, and Harris and his nutrition team review it to ensure their Chargers will be getting all the nutrients they need. Ramirez says that each day’s food order is so enormous that he can only really order for that day alone, with a few extra items for the next day on top of that. 40 whole chickens are consumed each day, so they are surely near the limit of their bandwidth every day.
Harris also talked about how different positions require different nutrition. Offensive linemen generally consume three to five thousand calories a day, while a wide receiver might require a little bit less.
For Ramirez and company, the biggest challenge is “staying ahead” of the game and ensuring they’re always prepared for these players, who often are in a rush. Ten players can easily wipe out their entire buffet, so they always need to be on their game.
They serve 50+ players, over 120 coaching staff, and another 120 business personnel on a daily basis, which comes out to around 300 a day. These NFL kitchens sound like they might be some of the most productive and efficient in the country.
