In 1991 and 1998, FNS conducted national studies of WIC vendors to determine the extent of vendor violation of program rules. After the 1998 study, FNS issued regulations to correct vendor practices. The 2005 study replicates the 1998 study to determine whether the regulations were effective, and to measure the frequency of vendor violations and the degree to which vendors charge accurate prices for WIC transactions.

The FNS goal was to document the process (steps, time, and resources) for fully implementing Team Nutrition  by communicating the four messages to students using the classroom and cafeteria as delivery channels, as well as other places in their environment such as the school, home, community and local media.

The Prime Vendor Pilot was conducted as part of USDA's Business Process Re-engineering efforts to improve the administration and operation of the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. Under this pilot, USDA partnered with the Department of Defense, which had an existing contract with commercial vendors and distributors.

FNS published “The WIC Vendor Management Study, 1998” in July 2001 which examined, in part, the extent to which retail grocers, defined as WIC “vendors” were violating program rules and regulations. The 1998 study is a follow-up to the “WIC Vendor Issues Study, 1991” published by FNS in May 1993. 

This report fulfills the request from Congress in the House Appropriations Committee Report (HR 107-116), which accompanied the Agriculture Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2002.

The purpose of the study was to learn the extent to which retail grocers, defined as "vendors" in the WIC Program, authorized to provide food to WIC participants, were violating program rules and procedures, and to determine which programmatic and/or demographic variables could be associated with vendor violations.

This executive summary describes Team Nutrition (TN) and findings from a pilot evaluation of the initiative. Detailed research findings are contained in two separate reports.