ASSEMBLY COMMERCE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND
AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE
STATEMENT TO
ASSEMBLY, No. 5093
with committee amendments
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
DATED: MARCH 6, 2025
The Assembly Commerce, Economic Development and
Agriculture Committee reports favorably, and with committee
amendments, Assembly Bill No. 5093.
As amended by the committee, this bill would establish purchase
preference requirements that are to be satisfied in association with the
procurement of local and regional foods for school meal program
purposes.
The Local Food for Schools (LFS) Cooperative Agreement
Program is a federal program, operated by the Agricultural
Management Service in the United States Department of Agriculture,
which enables the federal government to enter into cooperative
agreements, with individual states, to provide such states with federal
financial assistance to facilitate their procurement of local and regional
foods, from small businesses, from local and regional farmers and food
producers, and from socially disadvantaged farmers and food
producers, and their distribution of such local and regional foods, to
students at participating schools, as part of the National School Lunch
Program and federal School Breakfast Program. Under the existing
provisions of federal law, local and regional foods which are procured,
for students, under the LFS program must either be procured from in-
State farmers and food producers or from farmers and food producers
(whether in-State or out-of-State) who are located within 400 miles of
the destination school.
This bill would establish complimentary, State-level geographic
purchase preference requirements to ensure that the food procurement
activities being undertaken by school food authorities, by food service
management companies (FSMCs), and by other contracted third-party
food service providers, pursuant to the LFS program and other similar
State and federal laws and programs, are focused on the procurement
of foods and food products from a more localized area and, primarily,
from in-State farmers and food producers.
Specifically, the bill would provide that, whenever a school food
authority, or a FSMC or other third-party food service vendor, receives
federal or State-level funding under the LFS program, or under any 2
other similar federal or State program designed to encourage or
facilitate the procurement of local or regional foods for students at
participating schools, the school food authority, FSMC, or other third-
party vendor will be required, to the greatest extent practicable, to: 1)
give geographic preference to the procurement, for such purposes, of
foods and food products which are grown or otherwise produced
within State borders or a 100-mile radius of the destination school; and
2) among those foods and food products which are grown or produced
within State borders or 100 miles of the destination school, give
geographic preference to the procurement of foods and food products
that have been grown or otherwise produced by in-State farmers and
food producers within State borders or that 100-mile radius.
The bill would require any school food service contract, which is
executed between a school food authority and a FSMC or other third-
party vendor, to contain provisions setting forth, and requiring ongoing
compliance with, the bill’s geographic preference requirements, and it
would further require each school food authority, FSMC, and other
third-party meals service vendor to maintain and regularly submit, to
the Department of Agriculture, appropriate records and other
documentation demonstrating ongoing compliance with the bill’s
geographic preference requirements.
COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS :
The committee amended the bill to:
(1) give preference to the procurement of foods and food products
which are grown or otherwise produced within State borders or a 100-
mile radius of the destination school, instead of only a 100-mile radius
as originally provided by the bill;
(2) give the highest preference to the procurement of foods and
food products that have been grown or otherwise produced by in-State
farmers and food producers within State borders or a 100-mile radius,
instead of only a 100-mile radius as originally provided by the bill; and
(3) require the Secretary of Agriculture, instead of the
Commissioner of Environmental Protection, to adopt rules and
regulations to implement the provisions of the bill.