Food Assistance

During the 1990 school year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provided over $629 million in food commodities--such as beef, poultry, cheese, and flour--to child nutrition programs. Almost all of these commodities went to local school districts as part of the National School Lunch Program. Schools use the commodities to fix school lunches in their own kitchens or have food processing companies process the commodities into products like hamburgers or pizzas. This report discusses the extent to which (1) states are using processors to prepare their commodities, (2) state processing requirements vary, and (3) schools are satisfied with their access to processors and the services being provided.

GAO found that: (1) in school year 1990, states sent $77.5 million of the $624 million of donated food they received to processors; (2) although 47 states, 2 U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia entered into at least 1 processing contract during 1990, 8 states and 1 territory accounted for about 76 percent of the food sent to processors; (3) the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) requires that commodity processing be conducted under contracts with certain mandatory requirements; (4) states develop their own processing contracts and can augment FNS requirements; (5) 43 states and the District of Columbia added a total of 589 special provisions to their contracts; (6) most special provisions fell into 12 categories and included requirements regarding providing information on substitution and conmingling of donated food, byproducts, grading, payment arrangements, quality control, inventory protection, and reporting requirements; (7) although some processors indicated that differences in state processing requirements add to processing costs and adversely affect their operations, most processors did not consider such differences to be a major problem; (8) the American Commodity Distribution Association and USDA have initiatives under way to provide additional guidance on commodity processing and to promote standardization of processor contracting forms and processor reporting requirements; (9) local school district officials were generally satisfied with their access to processors, but state officials and national associations representing local school districts differed in their level of satisfaction; and (10) local school district, state, and national officials were satisfied with processor services and a USDA study reported that 98 percent of the school districts that received processed commodities were satisfied with the end products.