The Food and Nutrition Service is correcting a final rule that appeared in the Federal Register on Oct. 31, 2024. 

This final rule revises regulations for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and USDA Foods disaster response regulations. This final rule makes improvements in USDA’s food distribution programs.

Through this rulemaking,  FNS is codifying new statutory requirements included in the 2018 Farm Bill.

This rule revises and clarifies requirements for the processing of donated foods in order to: Incorporate successful processing options tested in demonstration projects into the regulations, ensure accountability for donated foods provided for processing, increase program efficiency and integrity, and support vendor and state operability.

This rule revises and clarifies requirements to ensure that USDA donated foods are distributed, stored, and managed in the safest, most efficient, and cost-effective manner, at state and recipient agency levels. The rule also reduces administrative and reporting requirements for state distributing agencies, revises or clarifies regulatory provisions relating to accountability for donated foods, and rewrites much of the regulations in a more user-friendly, plain language, format.

This two-part rule allows limited poultry substitution and full substitution of all other commodities except for beef and pork; and reduces current commodity recordkeeping and reporting requirements for some local level recipient agencies, such as schools.