United States Department of Agriculture

Food and Nutrition Service

Southeast Region

 

Policy Memorandum 250.41-01: Program Participation for Charitable Institutions (CIs)

 

This memorandum is a restatement of policy previously issued as Food Distribution Policy Memorandum 97-1 on November 26, 1996.  Any changes made to the original text are in bold.

 

Concerns have been expressed recently about the amount of time and paperwork required to determine eligibility, and to review the operations of CIs participating in the Food Distribution Program (FDP) during a period when little or no food has been made available to this outlet.  For these reasons, we are issuing this policy which is supported by regulation, and should relieve some of the paperwork burden.

 

Section 250.2(b) of the FDP regulations permits distributing agencies to impose participation requirements which are not inconsistent with other provisions of the regulations.  Based on this citation, the Food and Nutrition Service does not object to State agencies (SAs) establishing a minimum number of eligible persons which CIs must serve in order to receive donated foods.  Denying participation of a CI in the FDP is allowed if the average daily participation is so small as to make commodity distribution impractical.

 

In addition, because the Department does not intend to purchase foods solely for CIs in the foreseeable future, it is now permissible for SAs to deny participation to all CIs on this ground.  Before exercising this option, however, it is recommended that SAs consider how frequently CIs have been secondary outlets for commodities from other entities.

 

This policy is consistent with applicable legislation which neither mandates participation of CIs in the FDP, nor prescribes a specific level of commodity assistance to CIs.