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Applications Open: Cold Chain for Emergency Food Assistance Grants
- Bob Benenson
- 23 hours ago
- 2 min read
Federal Program Created Post-COVID Addresses Lack of Cold Storage at Food Banks
During the early months of the COVID crisis in 2020, many of us recoiled at photos and videos of farmers who felt they had to dump eggs and produce or slaughter herds of livestock because the nation's food industry supply chains — long thought to be failsafe — had faltered.
Some people then wondered aloud about why these food sources couldn't have been donated to organizations that help the hungry. And that's when we learned that most food assistance programs lacked the cold storage facilities that would have enabled them to bring in those perishable fresh food items, relying instead on shelf-stable packaged goods.
To address that critical need, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — signed into law by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — authorized the Cold Chain Grants for Emergency Food Assistance Program to be administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).
The USDA has announced the opening of applications for the 2026 rounds of grants with a total of $7.5 million available. AMS describes the program as follows:
AMS will competitively award funds to one or more recipients to offer sub-awards for cold storage and distribution equipment to food banks, food pantries, and other emergency food assistance operations to improve their ability to provide high quality meats, eggs, seafood, dairy, and fresh and minimally processed fruits and vegetables to vulnerable Americans.
The deadline to apply is October 1. If you are interested, click the first button below to get more information from the AMS webpage...
... and register for a USDA free webinar scheduled for September 2 from noon to 1 p.m. central time.
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