The USDA Foods Toolkit is a collection of valuable resources to assist child nutrition professionals in effectively using their USDA Food entitlement and to help them educate students, staff, and the community about the healthy contributions that USDA Foods provide to their meal programs.
This fact sheet outlines a number of additional resources for those seeking to directly purchase or raise food products for school nutrition programs.
"Food Safety Frequently Asked Questions: The Food Safety Modernization Act and its Impact on Farm to School Activities": This document includes common questions related to food safety when purchasing locally grown and raised food products directly from producers as well as food safety considerations for edible campus gardens.
The Federal Register notices announce the national average value of donated foods or, where applicable, cash in lieu of donated foods, each school year (July 1st through June 30th) for each lunch served by schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, and for each lunch and supper served by institutions participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
To help support the millions of families in America facing food and nutrition insecurity, USDA is providing nearly $1 billion for commodity purchases from U.S. farmers to support the emergency food network.
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.
See what foods are available for your menus next school year!
This webinar provided an overview of the USDA Foods Processing program and shared some tips on how to effectively manage USDA Foods diverted to processors.
The USDA DoD Fresh program allows schools and ITOs to buy fresh produce. The program is operated by the Defense Logistics Agency at DoD.