The USDA Foods Available List is a lot like any other menu, with dozens of healthy options for state agencies to order and distribute through USDA’s nutrition assistance programs. And every year, foods are added or removed from the list based on customer demand and market conditions. Some offerings are modified to improve nutrition content or make the product and its packaging easier to work with in the kitchen or more acceptable to kids.
The USDA Foods program is a collaboration between the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the agency that procures the food, and the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), the agency that distributes the food. This school year, the USDA Foods team’s goal for training and conferences is to provide more opportunities to taste new and reformulated products. That way, state agencies can confidently order them and school districts can incorporate them into their menus.
The USDA Test Kitchen, in the iconic South Building in Washington, D.C., is the hub for USDA Foods product evaluation by AMS and FNS staff. Current and prospective vendors provide samples to evaluate based on taste, texture, appearance and other factors. We then decide which products are good candidates for the Foods Available List and which may need a little more tweaking to meet recipients’ needs.
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