Authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill, the USDA Pilot Project for Procurement of Unprocessed Fruits and Vegetables was designed to provide states with additional flexibility in the procurement of unprocessed fruits and vegetables. Participating states and school food authorities can purchase approved items with existing USDA Foods National School Lunch Program entitlement funds from any USDA Pilot-authorized vendor in support of the school meal standards.
This report assesses that pilot and includes a qualitative evaluation of the vendor and ITO experiences and an assessment of pilot costs.
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.
The aim of this pilot is to study the impact of the availability of universal-free school breakfast on breakfast participation and measures related to students’ nutritional status and academic performance. This pilot is not intended to evaluate the current SBP or the value of consuming breakfast.
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.