Virginia’s Food Distribution program manages the distribution of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) donated foods and administrative funds to approximately 500 public and private entities throughout Virginia. Recipients include Virginia's public and private schools, hospitals, nursing homes, soup kitchens, elderly nutritional programs, correctional facilities, summer programs and day care centers. Foods are also made available to food banks for distribution to Virginians in need.
This program proudly supports Virginia’s agriculture industry and markets Virginia products as well as USDA-donated foods to schools and institutional buyers. Contact the Food Distribution program if you have a product suitable for Virginia food service programs.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, is entering into a cooperative agreement with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for a Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program Cooperative Agreement. VDACS will develop and administer coordinated initiatives to build resilience across the middle-of-the-food-supply-chain. Funds will support expanded capacity for the aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storing, transporting, wholesaling, and distribution of locally and regionally produced food products, including specialty crops, dairy, grains for human consumption, aquaculture, and other food products, excluding meat and poultry. VDACS will work in partnership with USDA to make competitive subawards to support infrastructure in the middle-of-the-supply-chain for domestic food and farm businesses and other eligible entities.
The Virginia Agriculture Food Assistance Program is for Virginia farmers and food producers to donate, sell, or otherwise provide agriculture products to charitable food assistance organizations. The bill also creates the Virginia Agriculture Food Assistance Fund to disburse moneys to such charitable food assistance organizations to reimburse farmers or food producers for any costs associated with harvesting, processing, packaging, or transporting agriculture products donated to such charitable food assistance organizations.
VDACS is seeking proposals from charitable food assistance organizations with a plan to engage local farmers and growers to purchase agricultural products that will be distributed to persons in need.
Inbound USDA food shipments for Virginia schools are available via Web-Based Supply Chain Management (WBSCM).
Virginia's Food Distribution program offers further processing for many USDA commodities such as cheese, fruits, meats and poultry. The option is offered to public schools as an alternative to receiving the products directly from USDA.