K A S H R U T . C O M_©

USDA Jewish event seeks solutions for yeshivas, kosher pantries

May 26, 2024 - from the JNS:

"Key kosher food industry stakeholders met on Wednesday with officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in an effort to unwind bureaucratic restrictions on procuring food for emergency pantries and school lunch programs.

"As part of the USDA’s Jewish American Heritage Month celebrations, the 'Kosher Supply Chain and Food Insecurity Dialogue' event at the USDA’s Washington, D.C., headquarters featured panel discussions on improving the coordination between the kosher industry and the Biden administration. The event comes as this year’s annual farm bill goes through revisions ahead of a vote in the House of Representatives.

"The USDA program takes food that the government purchases from farmers for purposes of market stabilization and distributes it to soup kitchens and pantries.

"The “equity doctrine” currently in place provides for a balance of available foods—produce, eggs, meat, fish, etc.—to be provided to participating TEFAP organizations.

There is a "lack of available kosher food in TEFAP to begin with. Until recently, only two kosher items in the program were required to be kosher, according to the bidding process. Now, there are eight. Much of the challenge stems from the higher cost of kosher products compared with their non-kosher counterparts.

"For some of the smaller kosher emergency food providers, that means that they might not be able to place a required minimum order, meaning they get nothing at all from the USDA program.

"Another key program discussed at the event was the availability of kosher foods in school lunch programs. Jewish schools often find themselves also having difficulty procuring kosher items.

"Almost every yeshiva in New York City and many yeshivas in New Jersey provide the lunch program.

"A piece of chicken that’s kosher is a lot more than a non-kosher piece of chicken, or bacon for that matter,” he said, pointing to other staples, such as milk, which are required to be provided.

"Another inherent numbers challenge is the small size of many of the participating yeshivas, who don’t have the ability to purchase in bulk and enjoy a discounted price on food, making enrollment in the lunch program—with all of its time-consuming bureaucratic burdens—often not worth the effort.

"Schnall said he’s pushing for a so-called carve-out similar to what was introduced in this year’s farm bill in the Senate for TEFAP, which would provide an additional $8 million for kosher pantries to be able to buy kosher foods.

"Schnall also noted a major issue with the “commodities” component of the school lunch program, wherein schools receive on a per-student basis around 30-40 cents to purchase staple foods through the government. Again, the selection of kosher products is often miniscule.

"On top of that, many of the yeshivas often have more restrictions on the hechsher, or type of rabbinical certification, that is acceptable within their community.

"Even basics such as kosher tuna and American cheese are difficult to come by in the USDA’s available basket.

The Biden administration, he continued, 'Surprisingly actually feels very motivated to get something done. Government always take time. That’s the nature of the beast.'

"Part of the challenge is keeping the issue “on the front burner,” making last week’s USDA-hosted event, including the presence of “movers and shakers” more “impactful” for the effort, he said.

"While Rapaport concedes that 'there was no resolution that tomorrow, this is going to happen,' coming out of last week’s event, 'there’s definitely a lot of optimism of willingness to move forward.'"