The Lake Group Inc.

The Lake Group Inc., operating through its Lake Group Division, is a Reno, Nevada-based small business that provides mobile food service and catering exclusively to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service as a prime contractor on 100% of its recent federal awards — all under Total Small Business or no set-aside designations. The company delivers hot and cold meals, sack lunches, and supplemental food items to firefighters, emergency responders, and incident management personnel at wildland fire suppression and all-hazard incident response operations across the western United States.

The Lake Group's customer footprint is hyper-concentrated around a single buyer. The Department of Agriculture Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management National Interagency Fire Center accounts for 37 of 57 prime awards (65% of awards by count) and $63.8 million of $74 million in combined potential value (86% of dollars). Regional Forest Service offices — Region 6 (Pacific Northwest), Region 5 (Pacific Southwest), Region 4 (Intermountain), and Region 3 (Southwestern) — account for the remaining 20 awards with $10 million combined potential value. This concentration reflects The Lake Group's exclusive specialization in Forest Service fire-response catering across multiple regions.

The Lake Group holds position on three primary parent vehicles. An Indefinite Delivery Contract (IDC 12024B20T2518) anchors 45 task orders valued at $18.5 million combined potential value and represents the vendor's core vehicle for recurring fire-season work. More recently, on July 1, 2025, the Forest Service awarded The Lake Group a Total Small Business set-aside multiple-award IDC for the Forest Service National Mobile Food Service Unit 2025–2029, with a $15 million ceiling running through December 31, 2029. This newer vehicle already carries 5 task orders valued at $5.1 million combined potential value, including a $491,000 delivery order issued by Region 4 on August 28, 2025, for operations in Jackson, Wyoming. A third vehicle — Indefinite Delivery Contract AG024BC159015A — supports 2 task orders valued at $2.2 million combined potential value. All three vehicles permit maximum individual order values up to $7.5 million per delivery order and are designed for rapid deployment during wildfire and emergency response seasons.

Activity trajectory shows a sharp decline from historical highs. The Lake Group executed 22 awards in 2022, 13 in 2023, 6 in 2024, 3 in 2025, and 4 in 2026 year to date. The award value mix reflects this: earlier bulk awards in the 2022–2023 window (including a $3.3 million delivery order to Region 6 in August 2024) have given way to smaller individual task orders. However, the recent award of the new $15 million IDC in July 2025, combined with four awards in 2026 (including a $2.98 million Region 6 order in July 2026 and a $1.34 million Region 5 order in September 2026), signals renewed activity against the refreshed vehicle.

The Lake Group operates with no subcontractor footprint — all 57 awards are prime deliveries, and the vendor performs work directly through multiple regional bases including Reno, Solvang and Grass Valley (California), Sandy (Oregon), Jackson (Wyoming), Phoenix (Arizona), Santa Fe (New Mexico), and Hamilton (Montana). PSC and NAICS coding (Natural Resources/Conservation–Forest-Range Fire Suppression/Presuppression; Food Service Contractors) align entirely with wildland fire response catering.

The vendor's award history spans from 2015 entry into SAM.gov through 2026. Recent delivery orders target specific incident locations and fire seasons — for example, a $217,088 order in July 2026 for Grass Valley fire operations, completion dates frequently tied to December 31, 2024, or December 31, 2026. Fixed-price pricing with economic price adjustment is standard across all delivery orders. The vendor's $74 million combined potential value reflects cumulative ceiling values across all active and historical task orders; actual obligations total $33.4 million (45% of potential value), indicating substantial task-order work yet to be invoiced or formally obligated under the established vehicles.