FNS Documents & Resources

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 manual provides comprehensive information on federal requirements, policies, and procedures, and is intended to help state agencies and local educational agencies accurately determine, certify, and verify children’s eligibility for free and reduced price school meals and free milk.

This memorandum outlines the requirements for CACFP institutions and facilities and Summer Food Service Program sponsors (program operators) to provide reasonable modifications to program meals or the meal service to accommodate children or adults (participants) with disabilities.

This memo includes important updates to the requirements related to accommodating children and adults (participants) with disabilities receiving meals through the CACFP and the SFSP. This memorandum is the companion piece to SP 59-2016 “Modifications to Accommodate Disabilities in the School Meal Programs” published on Sept. 27, 2016.  

This memorandum announces a revision to the instructions for calculating average daily attendance on the Form FNS-418: Report of the Summer Food Service Program for Children.

The purpose of this memorandum is to update the definition of what is considered “unprocessed” for the purposes of applying the optional geographic preference for procurement in the child nutrition programs.

This memorandum replaces SP 35-2009: Q&As Milk Substitution for Children with Medical or Special Dietary Needs, dated Aug. 13, 2009. We have attached the complete set of questions and answers and highlighted the three additions.

Please be aware that the procurement questions from July 22, 2009 have been revised. This new set of procurement questions supersedes the previous set, as a change has been made to the second Q&A under “Local Purchasing."

This memorandum updates and revises memoranda SP30-2008: Applying Geographic Preferences in Procurements for the Child Nutrition Programs, SP08-2009: Procurement Questions, and SP28-2009: Procurement Questions, regarding school food authorities’ and other institutions’ application of a geographic preference in procurements for the child nutrition programs.

This policy memorandum is the result of activities undertaken to plan a government-wide response to a potential human pandemic and addresses the operation of its USDA food programs during a major pandemic event.