As you may have heard, the Trump Administration imposed a host of new requirements and changes to the Farmers to Families Food Box Program (FFFBP) that originally made the initiative unworkable for Oregon Food Bank. We made the difficult decision to decline participation in the final phase of the program.

One reason was that USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced last week that the program will officially end on October 31, 2020. 

After sharing our serious concerns with longtime distribution partners who are on point for Phase 3 of FFFBP in our region, we were able to develop a plan that addresses several logistical challenges and other complications.

As a result, Oregon Food Bank branches will continue to participate in the remaining weeks of FFFBP, with deliveries beginning as soon as this week.

Our revised plan now includes:

• There are four food components of Phase 3 — produce boxes (10lbs), dairy boxes (5lbs), frozen meat boxes (5lbs) and individual gallons of milk

  • Produce boxes will contain 3-4 selections of the following items: potatoes, apples, onions, pears, baby carrots or oranges. We do not know which combination we will receive.

  • Dairy boxes include: shredded cheese, butter, liquid eggs

  • Meat boxes include: frozen chicken patties, frozen chicken taco meat

  • Milk: gallons of 2%

• Boxes of produce, frozen meat, dairy and gallon of milk are no longer required to be distributed as complete kits to community members

  • Originally clients would have been required to take one of each component regardless of diet.

• The four components do not need to be delivered simultaneously to Partner Agencies — you will be able to order any or all of these components 

  • Originally PAs would have been required to accept all components, posing significant challenges around receiving and storage of such large quantities of refrigerated and frozen food — not to mention food safety challenges that would result from commingling allergens and varied temperature-regulated foods.

• Partner Agencies will have the option to unpack the boxes and offer community members individual items from the boxes

• Promotional letters from the Trump Administration will not be inserted into the individual boxes.

• The program will still officially end on October 31, 2020. 

You should start to see boxes on POL this week, and you can place orders as you did with the Pacific Coast Fruit Company boxes. Please contact your RND with questions about the program changes, or email orders@oregonfoodbank.org with order questions.