Wisconsin Task Force on USDA Foods

The Task Force was first formed in September, 1997 for agencies receiving USDA Foods through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The Task Force is comprised of food service directors from small, medium, and large-size schools, with both public and private schools represented. The Task Force meets annually in November in Madison. Additional business and meetings are held as necessary via telephone conference calls, emails and other cost-saving venues.

Mission: To ensure that School Food Authorities (SFAs) have access to affordable, nutritious food through the USDA Foods program.

Goals:

1. Provide high quality, nutritious food items that reflect student food preferences.
2. Process USDA Foods on a statewide basis to obtain competitive pricing.
3. Spend the state USDA Foods entitlement funds in a cost-effective manner.
4. Improve the communication between schools, DPI and USDA.
5. Assist with continuing education for SFAs.

What we do: The Task Force provides recommendations for improvement in the USDA Foods Distribution Program. The intent of the Task Force is to provide schools with the highest quality of USDA Foods to serve to their customers, the students.

Nutrition Standards: The Task Force understands and recognizes the importance of providing nutritionally balanced and tasteful food items in school nutrition programs. Therefore, the Task Force has established nutrition standards for individual products made available through the Wisconsin USDA Foods Program.

These nutrition standards are followed for all state-processed products and USDA “brown-box” Foods made available to Wisconsin SFAs. In addition, the Task Force expects all SFAs participating in direct diversion processing to follow the nutrition standards for all USDA Foods received through direct diversion processing, as well.

• Task Force Nutrition Standards
• Nutrition Standards for SY 2012-13

Initiatives: To accomplish its mission and goals, the Task Force is currently involved in a number of initiatives. To better achieve these initiatives, the Task Force has established the following three sub-committee groups designed to focus on each initiative:

• Outreach Training Sub-Committee
• Recipes Using USDA Foods Sub-Committee
• Taste-Test Procedures Sub-Committee
  
  
  • Outreach Training Sub-Committee
    The purpose of the Outreach Training Sub-Committee is to provide training and assistance to Wisconsin SFAs regarding various topics within the USDA Foods Program.
    • USDA Foods Outreach Survey Summary
      The USDA Foods Outreach Survey was conducted by the Task Force from February 28, 2012 – March 14, 2012. The purpose of the USDA Foods Outreach Survey was to help identify program areas and topics within USDA Foods that Wisconsin SFAs are having issues with. Based on the program areas and topics identified in this survey, the Task Force will then develop training tools and assistance to address those issues. Please note: the original survey did include a comment line with each question. However, those comments have been removed from this summary to protect confidentiality.
    
    
  • Recipes Using USDA Foods Sub-Committee
    The purpose of the Recipe Sub-Committee is to collect, test and standardize recipes using USDA Foods and make these recipes available to all Wisconsin SFAs. In particular, the Recipe Sub-Committee is currently focusing on recipes using lean meat alternatives. The Recipe Sub-Committee hopes to have the first round of recipes available to other SFAs for the 2012-13 school year.
  
  
  • Taste-Test Procedures Sub-Committee
    The purpose of the Taste-Test Procedures Sub-Committee is to review and update the taste-test procedures and guidelines currently used during the procurement of the state-processed products made available through the Wisconsin USDA Foods Program.

• Wisconsin Task Force Membership List

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For questions about this information, contact Antonio D. Ante (608) 266-3615

Last updated on 4/26/2012 11:55:05 AM