During the public health emergency due to COVID-19, FNS waives, for all states, requirements that limit the use of Offer versus Serve to school food authorities and require sponsors to apply OVS under the rules followed for the National School Lunch Program.
FNS is establishing a nationwide waiver to support access to nutritious meals while minimizing potential exposure to the novel coronavirus for school year 2020-21.
This memorandum is meant to provide clarification and guidance on policies and procedures for donated food storage and distribution as they relate to product dating.
Offer versus Serve is a provision in the NSLP and School Breakfast Program that allows students to decline some of the food offered. The goals of OVS are to reduce food waste in the school meals programs while permitting students to decline foods they do not intend to eat.
It has come to our attention that there may be some confusion concerning fluid milk, and how it is offered in reimbursable lunches. Under all menu planning approaches, fluid milk is a separate food component/menu item.
This memorandum provides instructions on how to reconcile the physical inventory conducted at a distributing agency- or subdistributing agency-level storage facility with the book inventory required to be maintained for that facility.
This memorandum provides guidance on how to reconcile physical and book inventories as part of the required annual physical inventory of distributing agency and sub-distributing agency storage facilities, and provides guidance on offsetting inventory shortages and overages that are identified during the reconciliation process.
The purpose of this memorandum is to clarify the recent regulatory changes, and to provide interim guidance for taking additional actions in advance of further regulatory amendments.