In November 2005, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) issued Policy Memorandum FD-049 to assist school food authorities (SFAs) in providing healthier options and a wider variety of cheese products for students. The policy memorandum permits processors to substitute cheese donated by the Department of Agriculture (i.e., USDA cheese) with other varieties of cheese produced for the commercial market.
The purpose of this policy memorandum is to clarify a state distributing agency's (SDA) responsibilities regarding (1) the approval of end products for processing; and (2) monitoring of sales of such end products to school food authorities (SF A) in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) by reviewing a processor's monthly performance report.
In accordance with 7 CFR 250.30(1), a processor may. in most cases, substitute Department of Agriculture (USDA) donated foods with commercially purchased foods of U.S. origin, and of equal or better quality in all USDA purchase specifications than the donated food. The substitution option permits processors to conduct their business efficiently and provide finished end products to school food authorities (SFAs) and other recipient agencies in a timely manner.
In this policy memorandum, we clarify that the SFA may, in some cases, include bids for procurement of end products in its solicitation for procurement of commercial food products from commercial distributors, rather than conduct two separate solicitations.
The purpose of this policy memorandum is to clarify requirements in the sale of processed end products through a commercial distributor under an "indirect discount" or "hybrid" sales system and in a modified form of such sales system previously approved by FNS.
On July 1, 2006, FNS implemented Policy Memorandum FD-061: Inbound Cheese to Further Processors, in order to alleviate the administrative burden on processors and state distributing agencies (SDAs) in continually reallocating pounds to individual recipient agencies (RAs) based on the variation between the published target truck weight and the actual pounds delivered by the USDA vendor. This policy memorandum revises the original FD-061.
This memorandum is to clarify the appropriate actions a processor must take when errors are discovered on monthly performance reports.
This memo, which addresses commodity book inventory reduction at further processors. has been superseded by the July 16, 2021 memo, FD-40: Inventory Drawdown in USDA Foods Processing (Revised).
Beginning in 2000, the USDA began conducting a demonstration project, known as the National Master Processing Agreements, under which USDA Food and Nutrition Service arranges for national processing of federally donated foods.
Uniform policy to ensure that recipient agencies receive full credit for commodities provided to the processor.