Issue 9, September 2019
It is hard to believe that summer is over and a new school year has started. It seems like we just left Niagara Falls last week! Our many committees have been hard at work doing many projects to benefit ACDA membership. The TEFAP/CSFP committee operated a booth at the annual conference in Denver. The Education Committee has a yearlong schedule of monthly webinars, is developing a template resource for bids and contracts, and is developing a national training program for USDA Foods. The Processing Committee has a productive meeting planned for early October and we have members working with the USDA on the continuation of the BMI project. The Planning Committee just concluded an excellent planning meeting for our conference which is April 27th – 30th in Seattle, Washington. Based on membership feedback, this year’s conference will run from Monday to Thursday, which will reduce weekend travel. This is ACDA’s first visit to the Northwest in over fifteen years. I look forward to working with everyone to make this year a successful year for ACDA and the USDA programs which are so important to the customers they serve. Feel free to email me with any thoughts or ideas you have. Mike Birkmeyer, ACDA President
Calling all creative connoisseurs, rhyming wizards, true techies and social media users! We are looking for next, best ACDA hashtag. If you have a great idea, submit it to info@commodityfoods.org along with you name and you will be entered to win a $25 Amazon Gift card and an ACDA hat! Entries are due by November 15th. You must be an ACDA member to enter, but there is no limit to how many submissions you may make. A winner will be chosen by our Communications Committee in conjunction with our Board and a winner will be announced on November 10, 2019. Our current hashtags are #NourishTheNation and #ACDA. Our winner will be announced on all social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat) and we may request more information from you in order to distribute the prize.
Many of you may recall ACDA and SNA, working together in 2017 for support of H.R. 3738, the Healthy Breakfasts Help Kids Learn Act of 2017, to provide an additional 6 cents in commodity support for the School Breakfast Program (SBP). Earlier this year, additional information was released indicating that an additional $20 million for USDA Foods purchases has been allocated for Child Nutrition Programs. It was Congress’ intent that this money be provided to support USDA Foods purchases for the School Breakfast Program. Although there is not a requirement to order products or use foods in the SBP, FNS encourages State agencies and SFAs to use USDA Foods in their breakfast programs. FNS provides several products that compliment a robust and nutritious breakfast program including egg patties, bulk eggs, pancakes, orange juice, and the new cereal item. Additionally, FNS offers many products that are compatible with the SBP meal pattern such as cheese, ham, potatoes, yogurt, and a variety of the fruit products. For additional information, visit the Budget for Success: Spend 100% of NSLP Entitlement! slides, and make sure to check out the joint ACDA/SNA letter here!
If you have questions, suggestions, or comments please email me at Robin.Bowman@waypoint.com, we meet monthly; I will get your information back ASAP.
In August, USDA held a webinar titled: How to Use the New State Distributing Agency Monthly Performance Report Template. National Processors submitting Monthly Performance Reports are required to use this new template when sending their data to State Agencies and the NPR mailbox (NMPR@fns.usda.gov) You can view the webinar by visiting: https://youtu.be/sMl-TmiM0As On September 13th, FNS held their all NPA quarterly call. A wide variety of topics were covered, including:
As we look ahead to the fourth quarter of 2019, two very important meetings will take place:
Meanwhile, all Processors are busy monitoring inventories for compliance with FD-064 (revised,) taking orders and assisting State and Recipient Agencies with forecasting their USDA Foods needs. Remember: divert what you will use and use what you divert! Please let me know if I can be of any assistance to you! Carole Erb Happy Fall! Just a few quick reminders! First, don’t forget to brainstorm and come up with a new hashtag, dedicated solely to ACDA! The winner will receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card and ACDA hat! Another added benefit of being an ACDA member is free marketing materials, which are handy to have on-hand as you travel for food shows and other various events. Just complete our request form, and an ACDA staff member will follow up with you and ship the materials to your provided address. Also, several national events have been added to our USDA Foods Event Calendar, and we couldn’t be more thrilled! Finally, ACDA has recently launched a Job Postings Board and we’d love to see more job posts coming in! If you have a USDA Foods related position that you would like to publish on the ACDA website, send that information to info@commodityfoods.org. This is free for ACDA members! If you are not a current member, sign up today! Don’t forget, we are on Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat (@-acda-usdafoods)! Make sure to follow us, to stay in the loop for all things ACDA related. Leah Sullivan ACDA Communications Committee Thanks for Reading!If you have any eNewsletter ideas or submissions for an upcoming ACDA eNewsletter, please send those to Leah Sullivan at Leah.Sullivan@state.co.us | FOLLOW US!Member Spotlight
Don HembyTitle: Senior VP of Sales
Employer: Tasty Brands City & State: Fort Mill, SC Bio: Graduate of North Carolina State University with a degree in Food Science. I spent the first 23 years of my career in the Foodservice Brokerage business in the Carolinas. Then I became a regional in the Southeast US for Allen Canning. Then in 2009 I joined Tasty Brands to start this company solely focused on the K-12 market. Fun Fact or Quote: My mother just turned 100 and still going strong. She lived in the same house she was born in for 90 years without having to pay a house payment! Tell us the benefits of being an ACDA member: The commodity sale is multi-faceted and ever changing. ACDA gives vendors and K-12 customers an opportunity to be on the cutting edge of all the changes so they can respond best. ACDA conferences are an ideal place for us to meet also with the state representatives and stay in tune with their program's nuances. Being an ACDA Member, what do you especially like or appreciate about ACDA? The commodity sale is critical to our business model at Tasty Brands. It is most important that we support this with an all out effort from our entire team to make sure we assist the K-12 customers to find great products students will enjoy seeing on the menu. ACDA is the key supporter of the sales effort for all companies that do commodity processing so supporting ACDA is a given for us. It is amazing to step back and see the growth of commodity processing over the past few years. I can't imagine that we could have done this as an industry without the joint effort from all parties that ACDA has provided. ACDA IS GROWING ACDA is evolving and growing!The membership brochure highlighting all of the great reasons to be a ACDA member is available on request. If you are interested in obtaining copies to hand out at food shows or other events, contact info@commodityfoods.org |
Hope that this eNewsletter finds you
off to a good start to the 19/20 school year. Below are a few updates:
In March of 2019, USDA held a webinar on EPDS’. This is the heart of the Processing program. Click below to view the presentation as well as a study guide on the subject. .jpg)
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