With the arrival of the holiday season, here is some interesting information about the products that the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service buys.
AMS purchases a variety of domestically produced and processed fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and other products through a competitive process among approved vendors. The wholesome, high quality products are delivered to schools, food banks, and households in communities across the country. Different divisions of the Specialty Crops Inspection Service (SCIS), such as the Promotion & Economics Division (PED) and Specialty Crops Inspection Division (SCID) play vital roles in helping the USDA provide quality products to its most valued customers: schools and children.
AMS buys a lot of fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts from U.S. produce companies – about 40 kinds in various tasty forms. In fiscal year 2016, it purchased over 1.4 billion pounds of product for over $864 million for the regular entitlement and bonus buy programs. For example, for the recent Thanksgiving season, here are some facts about the federal purchases…
- 1.4 million pounds of pumpkin products for $1.2 million
- 152 million pounds of apples & apple products for $70 million
- 57 million pounds of cranberry and cranberry products for $34 million
- 51 million pounds of green beans for $22 million
- 252 million pounds of potatoes for $46 million
- 19 million pounds of sweet potatoes for $5 million
- 15 million pounds of walnuts for $31 million
Additionally, a lot of juice was purchased.
- 79 million pounds of grape juice for $28 million
- 91 million pounds of orange juice for $47 million
- 20 million pounds of grapefruit juice for $7 million