National Food Solution

Our New National Food Solution is Ready for You!

This summer, Blessings in a Backpack announced its new national food solution to meet the following goals:

Make it easier for our programs to purchase and distribute food to the kids regardless of the program size or location. (In a March 2018 survey, over 60% of respondents cited food logistics and pricing as the biggest hurdle to running their program.)

Ensure nutritional consistency and quality foods across all programs. Allows access to enhanced nutritional versions of foods kids love, often USDA approved for use in school programs, and not available at retail grocers.

Simplifies food ordering and delivery. Convenient online ordering and streamlined order forecasting will be available to support our volunteers and minimize time spent on orders.

Leverage our purchasing power by consolidating our purchases into a limited number of suppliers. Products offered through distribution will typically be less expensive than retail options. In addition, pricing is consistent across all Blessings programs and is fixed for an extended period of time – in many cases for the entire school year!

The new solutions 

Sysco has been chosen as our national food distributor. While some programs have worked with Sysco in the past with varying degrees of success, our new Master Distribution Agreement with Sysco defines the “rules of engagement” that each local Sysco Operating Company (“OpCo”) are to follow.  As a result, we expect it to have strong customer service throughout the country from Sysco. 

 Offerings through Sysco include: 

• Prepackaged meals. Meals kits are preassembled and shrink-wrapped, ready for distribution to the kids. 30 meals kits are in each case. Volunteers can be engaged in breaking down the cases to classroom quantities, distributing the food to the kids (as local school policy allows) and adding positive notecards.  Initially, we will have two prepack menus available, so programs can rotate menus every other week. Each menu fully complies with current child nutrition standards and school feeding nutrition requirements. 

• Line item menus. For programs that have a stable volunteer base, available in sufficient numbers each week for packing the bags, food products will be available by the case. Note that minimum case requirements must be met for delivery. Generally, the requirement is appx. 400 meals.  With the assistance of child nutrition specialists, Blessings has approved a menu consisting of six items for the line item option. Many Sysco locations will stock these line item products, although some will be handled on a special-order basis, based on total volume within a given market. In either case, we will work with programs to prepare order templates / forecasting demands so that Sysco can plan to have product available when needed.

In the event that we determine that the Sysco solution will not work for your local market, an alternative provider of prepack meals is available. 

How does it work? What does it cost? 

 Sysco Line Items 

Delivered by Sysco to a school or non-residential location for assembly by volunteers. Requires a minimum case delivery of 15 cases of combined items (or 10 cases if Sysco is already delivering to that location). Because cases vary in unit count, it is best to use the number of children in a program to project order cycles. Line items require approximately  400 meals for an order/delivery, so 400 children would order weekly, 200 every other week, and 100 would order monthly.  Most Sysco locations do not stock the full assortment of Blessings approved line items; programs using line items should allow 3-4 weeks for a special order to be processed, and order well in advance of the expected distribution date(s).  

In the future . . . 

As we consolidate more and more purchasing with our national solutions, especially by geographic markets, the greater our ability to continue to improve our offerings. For example, we anticipate being able to: 

• Increase the variety of prepack meals that are offered in the future beyond two alternating menus. In the state of Florida, for example, where over 7,000 kids are fed with prepack meals, four alternating menus are available.

• Identify additional products to be offered.  Currently, recognizing the mission and potential of Blessings’ programs, Kellogg’s Specialty Division, working with Sysco, offers cereal bowls at preferred pricing. As a result, the price we pay for cereal bowls is less than the typical price available through Sysco. Additional accommodations and variety of offerings by other food manufacturers as we consolidate our purchases is expected in the future.

Resources available in the PC Toolkit: 

1. FAQs to learn more about the nutritional value of selected food items 
2. Menus—line item and prepackaged meals 
3. “Food For Thought and Hungry Bellies” PowerPoint presentation, which includes additional information on USDA requirements for foods in school feeding programs. 

Ready to learn more? 

Please reach out to your dedicated program manager who will work with our food solutions consultant to determine the solution(s) available in your market. 

Remember . . .  the more kids we feed through the new national solution, the more future enhancements we will be able to make. Please join us today.

A Special Thanks . . . to our early adopters. We appreciated your patience as we worked out the details necessary to get food products into the Sysco Central Warehouses and select local OpCos so they could be delivered to you. We hope the convenience and nutritional value of the new solutions will make it worth the wait and welcome your feedback.