1973-1993

The Army Catering Corps has had a long association with the local authority in Aldershot and on 19th May 1971, was granted the Freedom of the Borough of Aldershot, allowing it the privilege of marching through the town 'with bands playing, drums beating and bayonets fixed'. Again, on 19th May 1980 the Corps received Freedom of the Borough of Rushmore, which culminated in the presentation of the Freedom Scroll  in a solid silver casket, in the Rushmore Arena.

By the early 1980s, the Corps was a highly respected and integral part of every unit in the British Army. Its soldiers were fit, professional, and highly motivated, and pioneers of catering management training. It is quite often forgotten that ACC cooks served with the Household Division, SAS and Parachute Regiment. We also trained and employed Gurkha cooks, non-commissioned officers, warrant officers and officers, in British cuisine and kitchen management, as well as Gurkha cookery.
 

In 1991 the Corps was feted across the world as caterers and their units proudly shared, the celebration of the Corps' 50^th Anniversary. Soon after this historic milestone in the Corps' history, pressure began to mount for the Armed Forces to reduce in size because of the perceived reduction in the threat to world peace. After considerable and wide-ranging studies one of the major decisions taken was to make 1000 ACC officers and all ranks redundant and to amalgamate several of the service-providing Corps' under one cap badge. As a result the Royal Logistic Corps was born on 5^th April 1993 and the Army Catering Corps was amalgamated into it with the Postal and Courier Service of the Royal Engineers, the Royal Corps of Transport, The Royal Ordnance Corps and the Royal Pioneer Corps.

The Army Catering Corps has therefore had a very short history, but the training and employment of cooks in the Army is still managed by professional military caterers. The Army School of Catering still exists and is still a Centre of Excellence, which is a model to many similar organisations. Soldiers passing through the RLC Training Centre St Omer, as it is now called, leave with National Vocational Qualifications and can build their portfolios during the whole of their career. Soldiers of the Army Catering Corps are still serving with distinction in all British regiments in all theatres of operation, just as their predecessors did all those years ago. Importantly, the Corps members past and present still gather annually in different parts of the country to share thoughts, words and deeds, through the Army Catering Corps Association and its satellites.