Purpose

The Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks established the Ohio Food Program to make nutritious shelf stable products available to foodbanks to complement other products acquired through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), donations, and Ohio’s Second Harvest Foodbank network.

Description

Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks (OASHF) administers the Ohio Food Program (OFP) as a mechanism to expand the level of nutritious shelf stable products available for distribution to hungry Ohioans.  At its core, OFP is a purchasing program.  First, a purchasing committee assesses the wants and needs of the state’s foodbanks, and develops a “shopping list” that is distributed to food companies and vendors.  Then, companies bid and contracts are awarded.  Finally, food is distributed and the process is repeated quarterly.

An OFP Manual contains detailed information about the program including:

• Introduction
• Basic Components and General Timeline
• Administration
• OFP Breakdown
  • Contract with Foodbanks
  • Contract with the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services
  • Choosing Product
  • Reporting
• Bid Process
• Foodbanks’ Responsibility
• Future
• Foodbank Preference Survey
• Request for Bid Sample Letter
• Foodbank Request Form

Note:  Expanded OFP information and material is included in the Ohio Food Purchase Agricultural Clearance Program's Manual.

State legislation was passed to provide funding for OFP and the Ohio Agricultural Clearance Program (OACP) to (a) support program administration, (b) enable purchase of shelf stable food products, and (c) food storage and transport.  State funding levels have grown from $1.5 million in 1997 to over $12 million biennially.

A listing of OFP vendors is included in the 2008 OASHF Annual Report (p.9).

Outcomes

In FY’08, a total of 5,999,099 pounds of nutritious shelf stable and frozen food was delivered to Ohio’s twelve Second Harvest Foodbanks. These items made possible the purchase and distribution of 4,686,796 million meals to hungry children and adults throughout Ohio.  Items included 36 different products as listed in the 2008 OASHF Annual Report (p.8).  This represents 6% of the total food distributed by the 12 OASHF member regional foodbanks.

OFP enables a significant return on investment in based on the comparable retail cost of items provided.  The average valuation of OFP purchases is approximately 33% of wholesale pricing.  Between October 1999 through June 2005, over 32.5 million pounds of OFP items were distributed to foodbanks, pantries, soup kitchens and ultimately, hungry Ohioans.

OFP works in conjunction with the Ohio Agricultural Clearance Program (OACP) to successfully supplement food resources and provide quality products for low-income Ohioans.  The two programs together provided 17% or 12,563,999 pounds of food distributed through OASHF member foodbanks in FY’05.