FNS Documents & Resources

The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will discontinue the requirement for vendors to use high security seals to secure USDA Foods deliveries as of July 1, 2023. 

This Q&A memorandum is designed to provide an overview of the policies related to the Professional Standards regulations for state and local school nutrition program personnel. 

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.

The purpose of this memorandum is to distribute funding allocations out of the total $25 million provided by the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2017 to state agencies to competitively award equipment assistance grants to eligible school food authorities participating in the National School Lunch Program.

This memorandum and its attachment supersede SP-37-2011, Child Nutrition 2010: Enhancing the School Food Safety Program. Attached are questions and answers regarding the school food safety requirements for schools participating in FNS child nutrition programs.

Letter of Verification Results and Adverse Action

This memorandum satisfies GAO’s recommendations for the Food and Nutrition Service to issue more specific guidance to states and school districts regarding the applicability of the food safety inspections requirement in schools that do not prepare food, such as those that only serve pre-packaged meals or meals delivered from a central preparation location (referred to in this memorandum as service-only sites). 

FD-060, Use of Donated Foods in the NSLP and Other Child Nutrition Programs (dated June 21, 2006) is cancelled. 

In this memorandum, we present several options for consideration by the distributing agency to help ensure that service institutions receive donated foods for use in the summer meals provided in SFSP in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

A number of schools nationwide are still having difficulty obtaining the two food safety inspections required by the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004. Although FNS realizes that many of the difficulties schools face are beyond their control, we would like to stress that local program operators are responsible for requesting the food safety inspections from the public health department and documenting their efforts.