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Hi, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar about the Department of Defense Fresh Fruit
and Vegetables Program or DoDFresh. The DoDFresh Program provides schools with the opportunity
to use their USDA Foods Entitlement to obtain fresh fruits and vegetables. This session
represents the first in a series of webinars to showcase promising practices about USDA
Foods and share information about how USDA Foods can help schools serve nutritious meals.
The webinars are part of our two-year communications plan to engage our stakeholders in timely,
relevant discussions about existing flexibilities within USDA Foods that may not be well-known.
With a greater understanding of basic program operations, our goal is to help states and
schools use USDA Foods effectively to stretch their budgets and get the most value for their
Entitlement dollars. Stay tuned for announcements about upcoming webinars to include topics
such as Processing USDA Foods, Using USDA Foods in Response to Disasters, Improving
Access to Nutrition and Allergen Information, and Food Safety. Now I will turn over the
webinar to Christina Conell, who will provide an overview and introduce our presenters.
Great, thanks, Laura. Before we get started, I just want to go over a few housekeeping
things on the webinar tools. On the top right-hand corner, you'll see three pieces of paper above
the Handout tab. I've uploaded a couple of documents there for you all to use. There's
a PDF of the slides that you can download and just have for reference on a later date.
There is also a handout of our DoDFresh Fact Sheet. And then also the contact list for
the DoDFresh regional representatives that we'll touch base on a little bit later. But
those are all there for you to download in the top right-hand corner. Additionally, at
the end of the call, we'll be doing a Q&A. And you can enter a question through the Q&A
tab on the top left-hand corner, or you could also press "star 1" to ask a question over
the phone. The webinar is being recorded and will be available in a few weeks on the Food
Distribution website. And before we get started, I just want to get a sense of who is on the
line with us today. So I want to do a quick poll. Hold on one second, I'm trying to get
those results shown here. I apologize. I can't seem to get the results shown. I'm showing
about 36% are from school districts and 33% are from State agencies. And we also have
a good number of our Federal colleagues on the line as well. Thank you. It's just good
for our presenters to see who's on the line with us today. I'll be giving a short overview
of DoDFresh, along with Pat Scott, who is our partner at the Defense Logistics Agency
at the Department of Defense. Pat is our liaison with DLA, and she'll be giving some background
and the history of the partnership between FNS and DLA. We'll also hear from Terry Minton,
who is the Administrator of the USDA Foods Program at the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.
And then we'll also get a school district perspective from Steve Davis at the Colchester
School District in Vermont. So today we'll be going over just a little bit of background.
I'll take over and talk about some of the advantages and challenges of the DoDFresh
Program. And then, like I said, we'll hear from Terri and Steve from their state and
school district perspectives. I'll then discuss a few contacts and resources that may be helpful
to you. And then we'll hope to have some Q&A at the end. So at this point, I'm going to
turn it over to Pat Scott; and she'll give us some background on the program. Pat, take
it away. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Pat Scott from DLA in Philadelphia, and
I'm glad to have had the opportunity and the invitation to speak to you this afternoon.
We're going into our 20th year of our partnership with USDA, with their initiative to come forward
to our agency two decades ago to find ways to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables
that are offered on the school lunches and in the school cafeterias. As you can think,
this is still a work in progress. But our goals have always remained the same; and that
is, that we want to offer a full line of high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables on our weekly
catalog. Our contracts are written to offer weekly deliveries to our schools and distribution
centers throughout the United States to participating districts and ITOs. Here in Philadelphia,
there is a group of officer contracting specialists who work the long-term produce contracts.
It's constantly moving and changing. Contracts are beginning and ending all the time. So
it's a very robust operation. But what they do do every week is a review of the pricing
and items that are submitted for the weekly catalogs on FFAVORS. Contracting is also involved
with the annual vendor audits, where the facility is inspected by our quality assurance team;
and we also take care of all vendor invoicing, reconciliation and payment responsibilities.
Regarding customer service, we have account managers here in Philadelphia. But we also
have produce experts all around the U.S. They used to be our buying office chiefs. When
we centralized our contracting back in Philadelphia, we retained them out in the field so that
they can be your first touch and direct support for any customer service issues with the goal
to resolve issues locally as quickly as possible. Many of you already know that we do use the
FFAVORS website. It is just an online website that's very easy to use. Customers can log
on. They can see their order. They can place an order. Go in after delivery to update their
receipt. They can view their catalog. And it also keeps track of funds, funds regarding
both federal Entitlement and if they've used any of their 4 and 11 reimbursement money
as well. Next chart, please. DoDFresh Basics: Where we're at really is we're in 47 states,
along with the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the *** Islands. We process
about 10,000 orders a month from all our USDA customers. And each of those orders can range
from 3 to 33 line items. So it's a high-volume business, and it's what we do; and we do try
to track the numbers to see the growth and where the blips would be. We have on average
about 120 of the ITOs also participating in the program. Our program has received some
positive recognition from the GAO and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government
back in the '90s. So we're quite proud of that. But like I said, it's a work in progress.
And we're always here to see what we can do to improve either the viability of our contracts
or the consistency and professionalism of our customer service. Next chart, please.
DOD Produce Contracts -- Basically, we've experimented with a couple of different ways
of awarding our contracts. They started out as six-year contracts. We've gone down as
low as two-year contracts. And I think what we're happy with and think works the best
is to have four-and a half year contracts; that is, a base year of 18 months, with two
18-month options that are maintained by the produce contracting section. Most of our awards
are made to small businesses. Our goal is to always award contracts to small businesses
where it's feasible to do so. Where we've had to reach out to large business is where
there are areas that we were not able to get coverage or they're just so remote that the
large food-service companies are the only ones that support that area. But there are
very few of them. Most are for small business. As you probably know, our schools and ITOs
do receive weekly deliveries or bi-monthly deliveries. It's really up to the customer
how often they want to deliver. But the program is set up that each location would receive
a weekly delivery. One of the aspects of the contract is that the vendor is encouraged
to support local-grown requirements in each of their contract zones. And that's done either
a combination of networking that the vendor has done within his area that he reaches out
to producers to bring in fruits and vegetables that are in season in his area, as well as
hearing from customers about what they want, what they've seen, what they've seen in their
local store. And we encourage the vendor to go out and find that and to be able to bring
it in so that it can be added to the catalog after item and pricing review. Regarding adding
new customers to the contracts, by and large the majority of any requests through the school
year are added successfully based on approval of the vendor and the contracting office.
This program is very fluid in that schools that are in the program at the beginning of
the year may use up their Entitlement; and we may not see them again until the next school
year stars. Other school districts may decide to join in the middle of the year. We've seen
all different kinds of variations of customers coming into the program and getting off of
the program, either due to money or whatever reasons. The contracts are in place. The website
is in place. What we like to say is that the service is there whenever you are ready to
come back in and use the DOD Program again. The next chart regarding the ITOs. Another
segment of our support to the USDA involves the Indian Travel organizations. We support
about 120 of them throughout the United States. Especially now in the wintertime, some are
very far and it's very cold and you have to deal with a lot of weather issues. But again,
it's a segment that we began supporting in 1997. Their catalog also contains approved
fresh fruit and vegetable items and seasonal items that are brought in based on the region
and based on the season. They also use the FFAVORS website for cataloging orders received,
and the vendors use it for invoicing. They also have access to the same account managers
and field reps for resolution of produce issues. And the program runs exactly the same way.
That produce is inspected at the time of delivery, and non-conforming produce should be rejected
and returned to the driver. Just kind of wrapping up in summary, our goal just remains to provide
a full selection of high-quality produce to all USDA customers. Now, regarding the amount
of purchases that we've had -- just a recap over the last three years. You can see that
there has been more and more Entitlement targeted toward the DoDFresh Program, and we expect
it to be a little bit higher going into school year 2015. Our contracts are written with
a 250% max, so there is room for growth on the contracts to absorb additional Entitlement
money that comes into each of the zones. We also track local purchases, and this has really
shown a lot of growth. When we first started tracking it, we were excited about just having
$1 million segregated out as locally-grown produce. And as you can see, over the last
three years it has increased. And as of this point in school year 2014, we've already had
$12 million worth of locally-grown produce on the catalog, as made available by the vendor,
and shipped out to the USDA customers accordingly. So we're kind of happy with that; but again,
it's something that we're always stressing with the vendors. And we hope that we can
get more and more of those items onto the catalog because we know that's what you want
to see. That pretty much wraps up my portion of it. Christina? Great, thank you, Pat. Thanks
for that overview. It's really nice to hear some of the background. And then before I
take over, I just want to see for the school districts and the State agencies are on the
line, how many of them are already participating in DoDFresh. So let me pull up that poll.
And hopefully I can get the results to show for this one. We have an overwhelming majority
so far saying that, yes, they are participating. We have about 30% saying, no, they're not;
and then a couple aren't sure. So thank you all, It really gives us some context. Hopefully,
we'll have some good conversation at the end. Now I just want to kind of highlight some
of the advantages and challenges that Pat alluded to of the DoDFresh Program. We at
USDA Foods and at FNS really see DoDFresh as a great program and a way that schools
and states can use their Entitlement more flexibly and have more options, especially
for some fresh fruits and vegetables. So I'll by start by talking about a couple of the
advantages: flexibility, consistency, easy ordering and funds tracking. And then I'll
talk about some of the challenges. Specifically, flexibility, unlike some of our more traditional
USDA Foods where we ask for orders a little bit further in advance, with DoDFresh school
districts can order weekly and have a weekly delivery to meet the demands of a fresh produce
supply chain -- which is really great to have that flexibility. Although we ask for an Entitlement
allocation at the beginning of the school year, that allocation can be changed throughout
the year. And we're able to accommodate requests to increase the amount of Entitlement to be
used through DOD and decrease the amount, either way. If a truckload gets cancelled
of canned peaches, maybe you have extra $20,000 that you want to put into DoDFresh. It allows
for some back and forth and flexibility there, which is really nice. In addition, at the
Federal level, the Food and Nutrition Service does not put a cap on the amount of Entitlement
a state can set aside for DoDFresh. Some states in turn do set a cap for their district. But
at the federal level, we don't have a cap; and we actually have some states using a large
portion of their USDA Foods Entitlement through DoDFresh. In addition to that, DoDFresh offers
really a great way to have consistency and frequency in deliveries. Pat mentioned that
most vendors offer weekly deliveries directly to school districts. Some go to a state warehouse
or to a distributor; but oftentimes, the product is going directly to a school district. So
being able to have that produce delivered every week is a great advantage of the program
and, again, something that more traditional USDA Foods were not able to accommodate. So
DoDFresh really fills that hole for us. And then Pat also mentioned this, but just to
highlight again. DoDFresh offers -- all the vendors offer a full line of produce items.
And they're always adding products to meet the demands of their customers. So don't hesitate
to ask. Give your vendor a call. If there's something not being offered that you want,
ask them. See if they can find it. Maybe they'll be able to find it locally. There is also
a full variety. You might be able to find precut products in addition to a whole apple
or a whole pear. But they also offer oftentimes baby carrots or sliced apples. So there is
a full range of products available. And finally, the FFAVORS catalog really offers a lot. It
enables you to manage the Entitlement; DOD to manage payment and reconciliation; and
then for us at USDA to see what has been used and then manage the Entitlement on the back
end as well. This is just a quick screenshot of the FFAVORS website. Pat, we'll have our
webinar later in the year, I think in May, scheduled to talk about how DoDFresh can support
private school programs and local purchasing. But I did want to show -- this one screenshot
shows that most vendors will mark products that are locally-grown with a mark that says
that, as "local grown," like you can see in this screenshot, just as an FYI so those of
you who already participate can see what the system looks like. Then wrapping up a little
bit, I just wanted to talk about a few of the challenges that we're seeing. As many
of you know, our Food Distribution Division just finished hosting a series of five different
State agency trainings across the country; and DoDFresh was one topic that we covered.
And it was really interesting to hear how different states had different perspectives
on every of aspect of DoDFresh, but also every aspect of USDA Food Programs. And so we definitely
heard some different challenges from states, and then other states who are loving the program.
But these are some of the challenges that we're seeing with DoDFresh. We saw those numbers
earlier from Pat that were experiencing incredible growth in the program. Most likely due to
all of those advantages we see, the incredible growth. It's basically had one vendor in Georgia
that did two and a half times the amount this year that he said he did last year. So school
districts are really clamoring to use this program. And although in most cases the vendors
want to and are able to accommodate some additional school districts or delivery sites, sometimes
it can be challenging to add a lot in the middle of the school year. But those are all
issues that we're working on and we know are challenging. And we've seen some successes
as well. One success story I want to -- we'll hear from Vermont as well. But Vermont just
had a new vendor, so we'll hear from a school district there. But also Eastern Oregon was
not being serviced by DOD because the vendor that was serving the rest of Oregon was not
willing to deliver to the more rural areas. But DoD did some market research and was able
to contract with the vendor that is now willing to serve those more remote parts. So although
it may be a long process, we are working really closely with Pat and our colleagues at DLA
to make sure that this program is open to anybody that is interested in it. And just
again, I want to show that DoDFresh is a growing portion. It still only represents probably
about 10% of USDA food purchases. But I think we're going to see that piece of pie grow.
And with that, I want to turn this over to Terri Minton from the State Department of
Agriculture in Tennessee. She is going to share her experience with the DoDFresh Program.
Good afternoon, everyone. I really appreciate being asked to be a part of this. As Christina
said, there are some states that absolutely love this program; and Tennessee is one of
them. We currently have -- let me get to a slide here that you can see. These are our
numbers. Tennessee has 98 districts participating in DoDFresh this year. That's 98 out of around
160/170 districts. Last year we had 90; so we're increasing each year. When I talk about
our participants being districts, I'm using that as a generic term because we have public
schools, we have private schools, we have residential child care institutions who are
on our program. Our participants range from the very small to the very large. On the small
end of the spectrum, we're urging private schools and residential institutions who are
new to the school lunch program to consider using all of their Entitlement for DoDFresh.
And I'll talk more about that in a minute. We also have our largest district, Shelby
County Schools, setting aside $1.2 million this year, which represents about one-quarter
of their total Entitlement. Statewide, we're using $7.1 million this year for DoDFresh.
That's nearly one-fourth of our total Entitlement for the state. That's up from $5.25 million
last school year. So we're continuing to see increase in participants and funding spent.
And we think these are very good signs of a successful program. The first thing I guess
we'll go over is just take a quick look at some of the benefits that we think DoDFresh
offers to our schools. Our brown-box, or regular food delivery orders, and our bulk pounds
are request-driven in Tennessee. So our DoD activity is too. We issue an annual commodity
planning workshop every spring, and our districts spend their estimated Entitlement as they
see fit. Each district chooses how to best meet their unique needs by dividing their
funds among any combination of brown-box, processing and DoD requests. Another benefit
we see is how easy it is for us to work with our districts to use DoD as an alternative
for any unused Entitlement. Because USDA doesn't limit the amount we can set aside, we can
always move unused Entitlement to DoD if we need to, even later in the school year when
ordering a truck of brown-box food might not be feasible. Also since USDA doesn't limit
the amount we can set aside, we don't limit the amount or the percentage of the Entitlement
we'll allow our schools can set aside. They choose the amount based solely on their needs.
Our state's prime contractor subcontracts with various produce vendors across the state
and has been able to reach all of our districts. We have not had any problems adding new participants
every year, and our districts can count on receiving the produce with the funds they've
set aside. I also have to give a lot of credit to Joe Miller, who is our DoD Defense Logistics
Agency Customer Specialist. Joe provides orientation to our new participants, and he's easily reached
throughout the year to provide ongoing support. And then I think the most obvious benefit
is the control this program gives our schools. While there are benefits to brown-box and
bulk pounds for processing, brown-box requires a small leap of faith when it comes to getting
what schools want and when they want. And bulk pounds require proper procurement and
coordinating the shipping times with manufacturers. With DoD, the procurement has already been
done by DoD on the participant's behalf. We simply bank some money for them at the start
of each school year in the FFAVORS online ordering system, and then they can choose
from the wide variety of fresh produce that's available throughout the school year. And
then I'll wrap up with some tips for working with DoDFresh. As I mentioned earlier, our
Defense Logistics Agency Customer Specialist provides ongoing support to our schools. He's
very quick to respond to requests. He takes e-mails and phone calls and answers questions,
provides assistance, talks to folks who are considering joining the program next year.
He's our connection to the contractor if there are any delivery problems, and he's a real
friend to our program here in Tennessee. Our districts can contact him directly, but we
do ask them to keep us in the loop if they have any complaints. We rarely receive complaints
about this program, but we do want to know if some sort of a trend might be starting
to develop. Another tip we would offer is to encourage your smallest participants to
use 100% of their Entitlement for DoDFresh. These are the private schools and residential
child care institutions who often struggle to effectively utilize their Entitlement.
These schools and institutions nearly always have a difficult time reaching the minimum
cases needed for a brown-box delivery, and they face paying a minimum fee for just one
or two cases at a time. Our fourth tip would be to watch your district's balances to ensure
the funds are being used and remind districts to do the same. This activity starts to pick
up as we get closer to the end of the school year. Some time in April every year, we'll
start sending reminder e-mails to any districts that appear to be at risk of leaving any unspent
funds. And that leads me to our last tip, which is to provide incentive to districts
to maximize use of their funds. In Tennessee we've done this by implementing a Use It or
Lose It policy. Our districts know we'll reach a point in late May and early June when we'll
start transferring unspent funds to districts that can use them by June 30. To wrap up our
year at the end of June, we always have one last district ready to place that one last
order with the remaining funds. Our districts, especially those who have been with us for
years, rarely have a significant balance to transfer away. In fact, it's far more common
for us to have districts spend down to their last dollar and start lining up to receive
any of those unused funds. I hope that Tennessee's perspective has been helpful. And now I'll
turn it back over to Christina. Great, thank you so much, Terri. I think that was really
helpful. And before we get to our Q&A, I want to also give Steve Davis from Colchester School
District in Vermont, I would like him to share his experience with DoDFresh. He's new to
DoDFresh, I believe. Steve, what has been the best far so far? And what are you seeing
as the great advantages, or are there some challenges too that you're seeing with DoDFresh
so far? Thank you, Christina. Good afternoon, everybody. Here in Vermont, I think the schools
-- we had a pilot program where a bunch of schools, I think there were 10 of us that
were given some DoD fresh dollars to use to sample the program. And then the entire state
is going to be participating in DoDFresh starting next year. So for Vermont, this is our first
taste of DoDFresh. My district, Colchester, I have five schools, about 2,500 students.
And we were given an Entitlement of $2,000 per school, so $10,000 to spend on DoDFresh.
We went through that $10,000 within three weeks in my schools. Our choices were limited.
We had about 12 items to choose from. There were tomatoes, carrots, local Vermont apples
and squash -- items like that. We didn't have lettuce at this point, but I've been told
that we will next year. And it was super successful here in Vermont. Like I said, we went through
the products within three weeks. All my schools have fresh fruit and vegetable bars, so we
were able to put the DoDFresh out on the bars, labeling the apples Vermont apples. And just
like Christina said, on the website when you go to place your order, which is really simple
to use, we were able to choose. It said which was a local apple, a local product, which
was great. It was really simple to use. And for me, my biggest challenge is always using
the brown-box items and being able to vary my menu. So we were able to use DoDFresh now
to eat up a lot of those dollars. I know one of the larger districts here in Vermont was
talking about using all of his commodities dollars towards DoDFresh, which I think is
really exciting if you want to get away from brown-box completely. I think that really
hits on it, Christina. I don't know if there are any other questions you want to ask me
that I didn't cover with that? No, I think that's great. I think it's good to hear from
somebody who is just getting started. So thank you for that perspective. Before I talk about
some of these resources, I want to step back. I think I made some assumptions about our
audience that I probably shouldn't have with some of the Q&A that is coming in that I'd
like to address. So I want to step back and explain USDA Foods really briefly. USDA schools
and states earn an Entitlement to spend through USDA Foods and that USDA Foods Entitlement
represents about 15% to 20% of the food on the plate served in schools through the National
School Lunch Program. And as a part of that USDA Foods Funds Entitlement, schools and
states can elect to spend a portion of that money through DoDFresh. It is available for
any school participating in the National School Lunch Program that wants to participate in
both USDA Foods and DoDFresh. And in addition to the schools part, we also talked briefly
about ITOs, which are Indian Tribal Organizations. So the Food and Nutrition Service also operates
a program called Food Distribution on Indian Reservations. And those ITOs are also able
to utilize the DoDFresh Program and earn an Entitlement similar to the schools program.
Laura, is that a good little background? Do you have anything to add there? No, just that
for the Indian Tribal Organizations, it's such a tremendous benefit for them. They receive
a monthly food package. And these fresh fruits and vegetables complement the other foods
that they receive in their monthly package. And the Tribal Program directors do a really
great job of bringing in fresh, seasonal items through the DoD. Great, thank you. All right,
we'll do the rest of the Q&A in just a minute. But just to give you an overview of where
to go next -- this is, I know, just kind of a quick, brief overview of what's happening
here with this program. Both Pat and Terri mentioned DoD representatives. So there's
a Defense Logistics Agency representative that manages each region of the country. And
they are there to help you with any issues with your vendor or when your contract is
coming up for renewal. If you have suggestions, they're your first line of contact there.
Again, this is also available in your Handouts tab. You're welcome to download that and just
have it for later reference. We also have a DoDFresh Fact Sheet that talks a little
bit more about how to work with your vendor to get more local products available in the
FFAVORS catalog. And then the FNS DoD website has several different links. It has a quick
history of DoDFresh, has that Fact Sheet that I just mentioned. It also has a spreadsheet
that lists all of the DoD vendors, all of the DoD regional representatives, and the
state school contacts. So you kind of have a one-stop shop to find any contact you're
looking for about the program. So that would be a great place to go to learn more. Additionally,
the Defense Logistics Agency website has some great background information as well. Also
available on their website are all of the contracts with each of the produce vendors
around the country. So if you have any specific questions about your contract, you should
be able to go there and locate that. With that, I think we're going to move to the questions.
I have several coming in over the webinar tool, but you can also ask a question by pressing
"star 1". And I think Deborah, our moderator, will help us out with that. Yes, thank you.
We will open the Question and Answer Session. So if you would like to ask a question, press
"star 1." You may be prompted to record your name. If you need to withdraw your question,
you can press "star 2". Thank you. Great, I'm going to start with one kind of recurring
question that's happening here; and that is: "What does 'local' mean in the context of
DoDFresh?" So I'll take a stab at this. And then, Pat, if I misspeak, please chime in.
But "local," when a product is marked as locally-grown in the FFAVORS catalog, it means that the
product is coming from within the state, within the contract award zone, or within an adjacent
state. But most often, the vendor is using the definition of "within the state." And
what I always recommend is start that relationship with your vendor. If you see that locally-grown
tag, call them; find out where it's coming from. But if it's marked as locally-grown,
it means within the state, within the contract award zone, or within an adjacent state. Pat,
do you have anything to add to that -- to the definition of local? No, Christina, you're
correct. This one I think is for you, Pat. You mentioned it briefly. This is coming from
Diane Duncan-Goldsmith, and she is wondering how DoD vendors are selected. The contracting
process starts with market research, which is done in advance of the incumbent contract.
While that is still going on, the contracting people reach out the market research tools
to query vendors in and around the area to see their interest in -- first of all, if
they carry the fruit and vegetable line that is required and if they can provide the support,
which would require multiple deliveries made to multiple locations. After the market research
comes back, it helps the contracting folks tailor the solicitation. At the same time,
they're also asking us for customer requirements -- any changes in requirements, usage reports,
the history and trend of items that have been purchased over the last several years that
they can attach as part of the solicitation. The solicitation goes out on the street and
is open for -- it varies. It could be two weeks; it could be a month. I'm not involved
with that part of it, so I don't really know the exact amount. But I would say between
two and four weeks the solicitation is out for bid. The bids are received back in Philadelphia
and are evaluated. I know that they go through a process of evaluating the bids, negotiating,
contacting the different bidders for things that they do to evaluate who would be a successful
bidder. And then finally, the award is made after they notify the non-awards. So it does
take time. And what is required is just the preplanning part of it so that the start of
the new contract coincides with the end of the incumbent contract. And like I said, we
have about 60 vendors and probably about 75 catalogs. So there is a lot going on all the
time. I hope that answers the question. Great, thank you, Pat. I'm going to ask two; this
time from Kathy Cole. It says: "Some of the fruits and vegetables are higher in cost than
our other vendors' prices. Why is this?" And then also the second part is: "And with the
drought most likely coming next year, how do you think this will affect food prices
and items for DoDFresh?" I think I can probably address that first part. And then, Pat, maybe
if you have any hypothesis on food prices, you could take that. Why you might be seeing
higher prices in the DoDFresh catalog is DoD does charge a 4.6% service charge on the produce.
And the price that you see in FFAVORS includes that service charge. Although it may be more
expensive, you are getting that product delivered oftentimes directly to the school district.
So that is a part of what that surcharge is paying for, in addition to the other overhead
that DoD provides to us. Pat, do you have anything to add to that? Or if you have any
predictions or have heard anything about higher prices coming for next year? No, I haven't
heard anything about prices for next year because really the prices are just based on
market prices. So the price that you see on the FFAVORS catalog is the price that is considered
the final deliver price. That price is the price that everyone pays, whether you're 5
miles from the vendor's facility or you're 300 miles from the vendor's facility, in order
to keep it fair to everybody within that contract zone. We have heard that street pricing often
from the same vendor is cheaper than what is on the FFAVORS catalog. And I guess what
we would just ask is to make sure that we're comparing the same items, the same pack, the
same grade and quality. Also, is that a price that's only good within a particular metropolitan
area; or would that be a price that would be the same if that vendor also had to deliver
all the way out to the remote customers in the contracting zone? Regarding forecasting,
I don't think that I could even venture a guess about that. All I can tell you is that
the contracting people here work with a price deviation report. Actually, that whole process
is under audit right now. So it is being scrutinized and is actually coming up with pretty positive
results. The prices that are analyzed are looked at based on prices in adjacent zones,
and they're also compared to USDA market reports just to make sure that everything stays in
line. What I think you're seeing on the most part is the fact that you might be looking
at prices that a vendor is offering in a local geographic area and saying that that is lower
than what I see on the FFAVORS catalog, of which the FFAVORS catalog is there to support
all customers within the contract zone. And I think that might be where the discrepancy
might exist. When you have examples of prices, our contracting people want to see it. If
there is something you could scan or fax or e-mail into us, they do look at it; and they
go back to the vendor to question things that might not look right. So, please, always consider
that as an option. If you feel that something is really out of whack, we would like to see
it so that we can go back to the Vendor and get it resolved. Great, thank you. I have
a couple of questions about Entitlement. Joe Russo asks: "Is there ability to use your
entire Entitlement with DoD? If so, how?" I'm going to make the assumption that Joe
is with a school district. Joe, I would suggest first calling your State agency that runs
the USDA Foods Program in your state and ask if you are welcome to use your whole Entitlement
on DoD. Like I said, from the Federal level, we see no problem with that. So it's really
a conversation where you would start with your State agency. Christina, can I just add
a little bit to that? Of course. Obviously, we want schools to be able to use that Entitlement
value as best they can, and that the menu would be what really drives those selections.
So if after all of the comparisons are made, it makes sense to allocate more of that Entitlement
towards DoDFresh, I think that's great. But we also want to encourage schools that can
use our other USDA Foods that they look at the selection of foods that are available
through the regular USDA Foods as well. But we see DoD as a way to complement that very
well. Great. And, Laura, I think this one might be for you as well, more specifically
about Entitlement. Antonio Ante asks: "Is it possible to roll over DoD funds to the
following school year due to lack of participation from schools that allocated funding in the
current school year?" Actually, the reconciliation of that Entitlement at the end of each school
year is up to the State agency. So we would hope that the state would take a look at the
utilization, and take those unused dollars and then reallocate them out in the following
school year according to how schools really feel they can use the dollars. Great. And,
Steve, I have one I'm hoping you might be able to speak to a little bit. Kimberly (inaudible)
asks: "How do smaller schools work with delivery minimums?" Have you had any issues with delivery
minimums from your new vendor? Well, actually, the vendor we're using is our regular vendor
that we use for our deliveries. So there was a minimum, I think; and I don't remember because
I haven't done it in a few weeks. But I think we had to place $50 per school of DoD when
we placed an order; but that order was going on the truck with our regular deliveries anyway.
So we here didn't have a huge problem with the minimum issue because it was riding on
the truck with our day-to-day groceries and things like that, which was Reinhart Foods
here in Vermont, who services a good percentage of the schools in the state. Great, okay,
thank you. Deborah, do we have any questions coming in from the phones? Yes, ma'am, we
have two questions in queue. Okay. The first question comes from Robin Wood. Your line
is now open. Hi, we're in Wisconsin; and we're getting our fresh produce from DoD delivered
from a company in Illinois, which doesn't really make any sense to us. Is there a way
that we can get our produce delivered again by our prime vendor? Hi, this is Pat. I'm
not sure who your prime vendor is, but I do understand your concerns with the new contract
with GPS. He's actually located out of Ohio, but he is subcontracting to a vendor in Illinois.
I know that contracting is making efforts to possibly re-solicit that area. So we are
aware of it, and they are working on improving the logistics going on with Wisconsin. And
hopefully it will result in a contract in your state. Thanks. You know part of the problem
is, if we have the $100 minimum drop and we can't meet that, then we're kind of out of
luck, especially if we have like $70 left, which is important to our district. If we
can get it back with the prime vendor, then we don't have that issue with that $100 minimum
drop because we're getting that anyway. Who was the prime vendor? Sysco -- Baraboo Sysco.
All right, I made a note of that. I'll look into it. And we also have an extra truck and
an extra delivery. Okay, understood. Thank you. As we continue to answer questions, I
also just want to put up a quick survey evaluation of the webinar. We'd love to get a good idea
of if this was helpful at all. If so, what do you want more of about DoDFresh? And then
also, what other webinars about USDA Foods you would like to see. So if you could take
literally 30 seconds to fill out this really quick survey while we finish answering some
of the questions, that would really help us. Operator, let's go ahead and take that second
question from the phones. Yes, the next question comes from the line of Mary Kruger. Your line
is now open. Hi, Christina. I just wanted to follow-up on Steve's answer about the small
schools in Vermont and our minimum drop. Our minimum drop in the contract is actually $75.
And we've found so far that that hasn't been a problem because there's a variety of stuff.
So a small school could get a bunch of really perishable products -- like we have past sizes
as small as three pounds. So if we have 3 pounds of red peppers and 10 pounds of strawberries,
and then fill out the rest of that order with things like potatoes and onions that are a
little less perishable. So far, that $75 minimum is working for us; and I haven't heard a lot
of complaints about it. Great, thank you for calling up. Rosie also reminded me to mention
that in the FFAVORS catalog there's a News Flash section where I would venture to say
most or a lot of those DoD produce vendors are using that section to notify the recipients
of what is going to be local that week. So in addition to tagging the product as locally-grown
in the catalog, they're also noting what farm it's coming from or what state it's coming
from in the News Flash section. So there are a couple of different places where schools
can look to see where products are coming from. I guess with that, we're getting a lot
of questions really specific to the local question and Farm to School. So I will take
the chance to plug -- although we didn't focus on it in this webinar because we just wanted
to give the basics and a quick overview of DoDFresh, we will be hosting a webinar in
the future specifically about how DoDFresh can support your local buying in addition.
And we'll definitely showcase some of the success stories we've seen from different
states and school districts who have had success working with their vendors to get more local
products. So stay tuned for some more information about that, but I'm really excited to see
all the interest. We have a couple more questions here. Let me find the one I was looking for.
This is a good one. Marybeth Bell asks: "How do school districts get started who are new
to the program? Where do we go? What do we do?" With that, I would suggest to school
districts to go to your State agency as a first step. And then your State agency can
work with Pat and DLA to get you onboard. We've had a lot of new districts be accommodated
this year, and especially now that we're closing down the school year, I think there is definitely
opportunity for next year. So my recommendation for any school district looking to get started
is to go to your State agency. The State agency that runs your USDA Foods program should be
able to help you and know where to go. And if they don't for any reason, you can feel
free to get in touch with me as well. Janet Duncan asks: "Can more Entitlement be sent
to DoD at any time during the year?" And again, from the FNS perspective, from a State agency,
a State agency can change their allocation at any time. And we ask and often suggest
that states also allow the same thing for schools or allow school districts to do the
same thing. So it depends a little bit on your State agency. But I suspect that with
a phone call or request to add more to your DoD allocation, they shouldn't have a problem.
Again, at the federal level, we do not have a cap; and you can change the amount of allocation
put towards DoD at any time during the school year. Another one that I think we should have
started a little more basic back at the beginning. But from Chris (inaudible) she asks: "Is this
above the commodity Entitlement that we receive?" No, this is not. DoDFresh is a part of the
commodity Entitlement, part of the USDA Foods Program. So you can elect to spend any portion
of that through the DoDFresh Program. So it is not any more funding; it is just another
option, another way to spend that funding. Another quick question about Entitlement.
Donna Coleman asks: "What is the time frame to divert Entitlement money to DoDFresh?"
Again, this depends a little bit on whether you're a school district or a State agency.
For State agencies we ask for estimates for the next school year right around now. But
again, that allocation can change at any time. So I suspect that your State agency is probably
also asking school districts right around now what you want to spend next year on DoDFresh.
But again, this is pretty flexible and should be fluid; it's just an estimate. And this
question is from Penny Burke: "Can you describe the brown-box versus the other ways to order
DoDFresh again?" And I think I probably should have added a little slide about USDA Foods
before we started talking about DoDFresh. So I apologize about that. USDA Foods offers
a whole range of products: canned, dried, frozen fruits and vegetables, along with several
different options for meat and poultry, grains as well. And then DoDFresh is kind of our
fresh fruit and vegetable arm. So it is a way to get fresh produce on a weekly basis,
using those Entitlement funds. I hope that answered that question. Do we have any other
questions on the phone? No questions in queue. All right, well, I'm being cognizant of the
time. And I think we're right at three o'clock. So I'd like to let you go. I think I got to
most of the questions that came in online. But if you have a burning question that I
didn't get to, please feel free to e-mail me. I'll try and take these questions down
and respond as well if there is something really specific that you want answered. But
again, I hope this was really helpful for everyone to see and just hear a little bit
more about the basics of DoDFresh. We hope to dive deeper into some of the details of
DoDFresh in the coming months. So hopefully you all will join us for that as well. With
that, I think we'll end the call for today.