After more than 40 years working with the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), Child Nutrition Operations Branch Chief Peggy Cantfil is retiring in early October!
After graduating college, Peggy started her federal career
in the Food Stamp Program (now the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) as a clerk translator, translating documents
for retailers in Puerto Rico. Two years later, she ventured over to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) as
a Food Program Specialist, where she worked on the WIC Food Package
regulations. After three wonderful years in WIC, Peggy was dragged
kicking and screaming to the Food Distribution Division (FDD), to help strengthen
FDD. It took Peggy a couple of years to embrace the program and realize
this was her calling. She worked in the Food Branch where she received
food orders using paper food requisitions, bought food, and sent wires to the
Regional Offices. During the FDD years, she worked for many division
directors, and even more branch chiefs. After a few short-term assignments in other branches
- including one at the Foreign Agricultural Service as a Latin American Coordinator of Global
Education - Peggy landed in the Processing Initiative Team, where she worked to implement the USDA
Foods National Processing Program. After 2005, she became the Branch Chief of what
is now called the Child Nutrition Operations Branch. Peggy's most cherished accolade was the FNS 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award.
During these 40 years, Peggy has gained a loving
husband (Mark) of 39 years, three beautiful children (Blair, Paige, and Colin),
and 1.75 grandchildren (Sadie plus another one due in October). She has also had six dogs and a fleet
of vehicles that would make any car enthusiast jealous. All these
accomplishments don’t match Peggy’s reputation as the ultimate recycler and
being the posterchild for “Buy American.”
Happy Retirement, Peggy Cantfil! Thank you for your many years of dedicated service to USDA Foods!
|
The updated meal standards for the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) go into effect on October 1. CACFP day care centers and homes can find a variety of helpful resources on the Nutrition Standards for CACFP Meals and Snacks webpage, including one-page summaries of the updated meal standards, in both English and Spanish; updated meal pattern charts for infants, children, and adults; and best practices.
Under the updated CACFP nutrition standards, meals and snacks served will include a greater variety of vegetables and fruit, more whole grains, and less added sugar and saturated fat. The updated standards for meals and snacks served in the CACFP are based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, science-based recommendations made by the National Academy of Medicine, cost and practical considerations, and stakeholders' input. These improvements are expected to enhance the quality of meals served in CACFP to help young children learn healthy eating habits early on in their lives and improve the wellness of adult participants.
You ordered your USDA Foods, they’ve been purchased, but you realize they are scheduled to go to the wrong location, perhaps because you recently changed warehouses. What do you do?
Once an order has been purchased, any change to the order requires a Purchase Order (PO) modification. Since a modification requires the approval of several parties, it can take several weeks to complete. This is why we require advance notice of any changes to a purchased order. The indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) fruit and vegetable orders require that a request be submitted to the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) at least 45 days prior to the first day in the delivery period. All other products require submitting a request to FNS 35 days prior to the first day in the delivery period. Recipient Agencies (RA) need to allow time for the State Distributing Agency (SDA) to approve and send to FNS.
Because changes are inevitable, we have created a template to download in the Web-Based Supply Chain Management (WBSCM) system. This new format is required when the SDA submits requests to FNS.
Once an Order Status Report has been executed in WBSCM, click on the drop down in the view box. The template that was created to use for any PO modifications is titled: SO_SDA_MODIFICATION_REQUEST. Download this file into an Excel spreadsheet. If a change to the destination is needed, add columns at the end of the spreadsheet titled: New Ship-To party, New Ship-To address and New Ship-To city, state and zip code. If there are multiple orders to be changed, send all changes in one spreadsheet to the appropriate specialist at FNS Headquarters. When a change is needed other than destination, use the same template, download into an Excel spreadsheet and add a column titled Notes. For each change, describe the change in the notes section. Submit the spreadsheet using the same timeline as above. Any time you have a question, you can contact your FNS specialist to assist you.
The Commodity We All Share is Love
by Chef Chad Taylor, SNS, Executive Chef, Des
Moines Public Schools
Earlier this year, I experienced an exciting conference with the American Commodity Distribution
Association in Denver, Colorado. I met new friends and peers that share many
of my core beliefs and passions about food and school food service. This opportunity made me think about how much of a difference we make in the
lives of people daily. We can make a
person happy when we offer their favorite items, or serve them with a smile.
The secret to great food is to add
the spice of love. Take the extra effort
to be proud of and serve your food with love. Cook like you are going to serve your
grandmother’s best recipe, something special like her famous spaghetti and
meatballs (all of which is available through the USDA Foods program—sauce,
noodles, and meatballs). Using USDA Foods products in
our recipes are those same ingredient foundations that create the “love.” In Denver, I presented in a session about creative menus and gave examples of how my school district in Iowa uses
USDA Foods products to enhance the dining experiences of our students.
Here is a Sweet Potato Cinnamon Roll
recipe from Des Moines Public Schools that uses the canned sweet potatoes, white whole wheat flour, vegetable
oil, and whole frozen eggs available to us through USDA Foods. Enjoy!
 
Montana
Demonstrates Positive Results from State-Tribal Partnership
FDPIR
participant data helps State identify students eligible for school meal
benefits
Direct Certification through the use of the Food
Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) participant data provides a
great opportunity for States and Local Education Agencies to reach
populations in and around Tribal communities, and assist schools serving
these areas to enroll more eligible children in the National School Lunch
Program (NSLP). Obtaining this data can
be difficult, though, with past efforts relying on phone calls and manual
exchanges of physical lists. In the fall of 2014, the Montana Office of Public
Instruction School Nutrition Programs (MOPI SNP) sought to improve this process,
by reaching out to Montana’s seven Indian Tribal Organizations (ITOs). Given
the sensitive nature of this data, MOPI SNP’s staff embarked on a road trip
across 147,000 square miles to discuss the issue with Tribal representatives in
person.
Through these efforts, the State of Montana established
data sharing partnership agreements with six of the seven ITOs, with the seventh
near completion. With these agreements in place, the data is exchanged
electronically, allowing MOPI SNP to quickly and accurately match students. In
School Year 2016-2017, its first full year of matching, MOPI reported nearly
200 direct certifications via their match process - that means almost 200 children directly attributed to their new data
sharing partnership. MOPI SNP can be
assured that their hard work and effort has benefitted their Tribal partners,
and children in these communities are being provided the best opportunity to
participate in the NSLP.
Montana's
FDPIR Direct Certification efforts are associated with a Direct Certification Improvement
Grant project. For more information,
please see USDA FNS Direct
Certification Improvement Grants.
Read more about Montana’s
FDPIR-Direct Certification efforts in the Spring/Summer 2017 Match to Meal newsletter
published by the Food and Nutrition Service’s Child Nutrition Programs.
In the coming months, USDA will be adding links to the
USDA Market News Specialty Crops, fruit and vegetable reports to the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Order/Receipt System (FFAVORS) webpage.
We are working on developing training resources to provide guidance on how to
utilize these reports. Each year, Market
News issues thousands of reports, providing key wholesale, retail, and shipping
data from select terminal produce markets throughout the nation. Market News
disseminates detailed information on marketing conditions for fresh fruits and
vegetables at major domestic wholesale markets, production areas, and ports of
entry. Using direct contacts with sales persons, suppliers, brokers, and
buyers, Market News reporters collect, validate, analyze, and organize unbiased
data on price, volume, quality, and condition, making it available within hours
of collection at no cost to the customer. These reports will assist schools by providing
information on market conditions and when they can expect produce items to be in season domestically and by allowing customers to identify trends in availability and monitor price patterns.
USDA
DoD Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program Complaint Process: One
choice for utilizing USDA Foods entitlement is the USDA DoD Fresh Program. We recommend that schools inspect produce at the
time of delivery and note on the delivery document any quality or condition
issues, or product shortages. It is important that all issues regarding produce quality, condition, availability,
and delivery are recorded on the delivery document and include
specific details and photos of the issue(s). Also, be sure to report any issues with produce
received through USDA DoD Fresh to the appropriate DLA Service
Representative, the vendor, and the State Distributing Agency. Make copies of
this documentation and maintain for your records.
If issues are reported and not resolved, please
contact the USDA Foods Complaint Team. The Complaint Team will work with DoD to
resolve the issue. We welcome your feedback on produce received through the
USDA DoD Fresh Program.
USDA Foods Complaint Hotline:
800-446-6991.
Email: USDAFoodsComplaints@fns.usda.gov.
The Complaint Team is available
Monday-Friday, 6:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
|
FFAVORS No Longer Applies DoD Surcharge to NSLP Orders
With the start of School Year 2017-2018, the Department of
Defense (DoD) surcharge on orders will no longer be deducted from National
School Lunch Program (NSLP) entitlement funds in the Fresh
Fruits and Vegetables Order/Receipt System (FFAVORS). The DoD surcharge had
been applied to all orders since the start of the USDA
DoD Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program and has been set at 4.6% since
October 2007. This enhancement makes it
easier for schools to compare the price of produce available through FFAVORS
with what can be purchased from other sources.
Prior to the July release, the ‘Case Price’ displayed in the
ordering catalog added the surcharge to the vendor’s price. For example, when a vendor entered a case
price of $7.00, the value of the ‘Case Price’ in the FFAVORS catalog was $7.32,
after applying the DoD surcharge. This
value was then used to calculate the ‘Actual Cost’ to be deducted from NSLP
entitlement.
The dollar value appearing in the ‘Case Price’ column will
now reflect the price entered by the vendor, and the surcharge will no longer
be charged to NSLP entitlement. Now, when a vendor enters a case price of
$7.00, the ‘Case Price’ will be $7.00 and the ‘Actual Cost’ will not include
the DoD surcharge in the calculation.
Please contact the FFAVORS
Help Desk with any questions.
New Look Coming to WBSCM
At the end of October, many of the supporting software
components for the Web-Based
Supply Chain Management (WBSCM) system will be upgraded. To accomplish this, WBSCM will be unavailable
after 4:00 PM October 27 through 6:00 AM October 30, 2017. The training environment (NTRN) will also be
unavailable during this time and through the first week of November.
This upgrade will improve system performance and
provide some new navigational tools. There
will also be some subtle changes to the look of the header, tabs, and
navigation menu, including repositioning of the WBSCM logo.
Some of the new navigation tools include:
-
Back, Forward, History, and Favorites links are added to top menu
bar.
- Tabs are
highlighted when selected or when the mouse cursor hovers over them.
- A breadcrumb
trail below the tabs shows the navigation path, and the user can easily go back
to a previously selected menu item or tab by clicking the linked text.
- The
‘Options’ menu is more clearly labeled to facilitate user access to
context-sensitive help and more.
After the upgrade, all users will need to re-create
their portal favorites. Instructions are
available in the WBSCM document library: Help->Training->Job
Aids->General Help->Add a Portal Favorite.
Additional information about the WBSCM extended
maintenance window and the application changes will be provided by email and
through the WBSCM News & Announcement forums closer to the upgrade
date. If you have questions about these
changes, contact the WBSCM
Service Desk or call (877) 927-2648.
USDA staff will be participating in this upcoming meeting in 2017. We look forward to the opportunity to meet you and hope to see you there!
October 24-25: Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) 2017 Annual Industry Meeting for USDA Foods Contractors and Suppliers in Arlington, Virginia.
 Here's how to sign up for these updates via GovDelivery:
1. Go to the Food Distribution website.
2. Click on the red envelope on the row of social media icons on the top right of the page.
3. Enter your email address and click "Submit."
4. Check the boxes to select your topics of interest. For these e-letters, scroll down to the Food Distribution category and click the plus sign to the left of the check box to expand the list and view all the sub-categories. Check these sub-categories to receive the corresponding e-letters:
*USDA Foods --> receive all "USDA Foods from Farm to Plate" general + program-specific e-letters
*Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) --> receive "Household Highlights" e-letter
*The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) --> receive "Household Highlights" e-letter
*Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) --> receive "FDPIR Connection" e-letter
*Schools/Child Nutrition Commodity Programs --> receive "Spotlight on Schools" e-letter
5. Update your subscription preferences any time by following the above steps or clicking on the Subscriber Preferences Page link at the bottom of any of the e-letter email messages you receive from GovDelivery. Questions? Contact us at USDAFoods@fns.usda.gov
|
|
