FNS Documents & Resources

Part of a five-video series,  available in English and Spanish, offers “tricks of the trade” to help food service operators keep produce safe and at a high quality.

Ethylene Gas - Part of a five-video series,  available in English and Spanish, offers “tricks of the trade” to help food service operators keep produce safe and at a high quality.

This webinar provides an overview of the Guidance for School Food Authorities and State Agencies; Contracting with Food Service Management Companies, published in June 2016 and is presented now as this is the season for school food authorities to begin soliciting for these services.

In this 2014 webinar for state distributing and recipient agencies operating The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), Jeramia Garcia of the FNS Food Distribution Division Policy Branch reviews the Federal regulations governing the allocation of resources in TEFAP, and a panel of speakers – Sandi Hersh of Colorado, Mallory Reeves of Florida, and Kim Eads and Yvonne Pitrof of Washington – discuss aspects of their TEFAP resource allocation process and recent changes they have made to their TEFAP operations.

During the last webinar in the twelve-part series, the USDA Farm to School Program offers a speedy recap of the variety of ways districts can purchase local foods, and talks through an example of how one district is tying it all together with a comprehensive local purchasing program. Deborah Kane, the National Director of USDA's Farm to School Program, wraps up the webinar by showing us how local procurement fits into the larger farm to school picture and shares several resources that are available to help you meet your local purchasing goals.

In this webinar, the sixth in this series, USDA's Farm to School Team discusses how schools can purchase local products through distributors. A food service director from Tennessee and a farm to school coordinator from Georgia share how they've been able to work with distributors to buy local foods.

In this webinar, the fifth in the series, we discuss how schools can purchase local products by using product specifications, vendor requirements and evaluation criteria. For example, schools can require that vendors offer farm visits or origin labeling, or a school might request a variety of product only grown in the nearby region.

USDA hosted this webinar to assist eligible entities in preparing proposals for the USDA Farm to School grant program.