U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) Meals to You program has responded to the school closures due to COVID-19, here one of the partners PepsiCo implemented a logistics solution that utilizes package delivery company (UPS) to get two-week supplemental food boxes to children in rural locations, from their more than 1 million-square-foot distribution center (hub), in Arlington, TX, on August 14, 2020.
Today's packages are heading to rural Texas, Puerto Rico, and Alaska. The program includes 41 States and two territories. The UPS fleet of LNG, CNG and late model diesel tractors keep operations economically and environmentally more efficient.
USDA first began the Meals to You program in 2019 as a three-year demonstration project designed to test a method to deliver nutritious food to children during the summer months in rural areas where the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is not available to difficult to access. USDA entered into an agreement with Baylor University's Texas Hunger Initiative (now called the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty) for the original demonstration.
In response to COVID-19, USDA and its partners were able to leverage the summer demonstration project to ensure rural children had access to food during pandemic-related school closures. The Emergency Meals to You demonstration project continues our public-private partnership with the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty and McLane Global that began in Summer 2019, and additionally includes Pepsi Co. and Chartwells.
USDA was able to fund this expansion utilizing funding provided by the CARES Act. Overall, we allocated $185 million for the program (from the $8.8 billion that the CARES Act provided for Child Nutrition.)
Meals to You boxes are delivered directly to children's homes via the U.S. Postal Service or another delivery service. Each box contains 20 nutritious, shelf-stable meals, including ten breakfasts and ten lunches/suppers. In participating states, families with students who attend an eligible school or are eligible for free or reduced-price meals may opt-in to receive one box per child every two weeks.
The original goal was to serve 1 million meals per week, which was quickly surpassed. The partnership is now serving around 5 million meals per week.
Photographs of a commercial product or enterprise do not constitute an endorsement by the USDA over products or enterprises not shown. USDA Media by Lance Cheung. Original public domain image from Flickr