The Emergency Food Assistance Program

What this funds

The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) supplements the diets of people in need by providing nutritious USDA Foods to States. States provide food to local agencies for distribution to households for home consumption and to organizations that prepare meals for people in need. Recipients of USDA Foods for household consumption must meet program eligibility criteria set by the States. USDA also provides TEFAP administrative funding to States to support storing and distributing USDA Foods and foods from other sources, including private donations. TEFAP foods and administrative funds are allocated to States based on a formula that considers the number of unemployed people in each State and the number of persons in each State with incomes States may direct their TEFAP foods to 1) distribution to needy households, 2) provision of meals to the needy at emergency feeding sites, or 3) a combination of the two. Each State is responsible for: selecting organizations to participate in the program, allocating food and administrative funds among such organizations, and establishing eligibility criteria. Many local TEFAP agencies depend significantly on volunteers and are faith-based organizations. TEFAP administrative funds are provided to States under the CAP account to help defray State and local costs associated with the transportation, processing, storage, and distribution of USDA Foods or foods secured from other sources, including the private sector. The 2025 appropriations also permitted each State to convert up to 20 percent of TEFAP food funds into administrative funds. of their administrative funds to food funds to purchase additional USDA Foods. States can also use administrative funds to support food rescue activities such as gleaning and other food recovery efforts. In these ways, administrative funds are efficiently leveraged to increase the total flow of food, from all A variety of healthy, domestically produced foods were purchased specifically for distribution in TEFAP in 2025 including fresh, frozen, canned fruits and vegetables as well as dried fruit and unsweetened enriched grains including a variety of pasta, rice, and cereal products; and low-fat and non-fat dairy products such as milk, yogurt, and cheese. In 2025, USDA purchased additional food items under its market support authorities and provided them for distribution through TEFAP outlets. The total amount of bonus products purchased in 2025 for distribution through TEFAP outlets was $866 million. Bonus USDA Foods included: fresh grapefruit, beans and lentils; chicken, shrimp, Alaska pollock, Atlantic groundfish, and catfish; and milk. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-334, the 2018 Farm Bill) provided funding for State agencies to administer Farm to Food Bank projects to harvest, process, package, or transport donated foods for use by TEFAP emergency feeding organizations (EFOs). In July 2025, the Working Families Tax Cut Act (P.L. 119-211) extended the authority for TEFAP Farm to Food Bank Projects and to TEFAP State agencies in 2026. Past projects include diverting unused agricultural products at risk of going to waste to emergency feeding organizations for distribution to people in need, streamlining the processes for gleaning leftover produce for donation to EFOs, and increasing the capacity of EFOs to In 2025, $80 million was appropriated for TEFAP administrative funds. In addition, the Secretary was authorized to make available up to twenty percent of TEFAP food funds to support administrative costs. The 2025 appropriation for TEFAP entitlement food, provided in the SNAP account, was $462.5 million, which included the funding authorized by Section 27(a)(2) of the Food and Nutrition Act of

Extracted from Food and Nutrition Service, p. 100. Verbatim; nothing here is paraphrased.

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