The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is reprising its status as the government department with the most annual purchases by sourcing $100 million in domestic fish.
The department’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) arm had by March 7, 2025 awarded multimillion-dollar contracts to pollock, shrimp and catfish suppliers.
Some of the supplies will end up in the agency’s Child Nutrition program while others in domestic food programs.
Contracts go to successful applicants within the deadline period, whose first phase in 2025 ended January 31. Such contracts also undergo inventory scrutiny by the office of the Inspector general at the agriculture department.
Major Contracts
Among the lucky contractors is the Pacific Northwest-based Trident Seafoods, which bagged $25.3 million to supply Alaska pollock.
Another is east coast’s Channel Fish, which will supply $22.4 million in Atlantic pollock to go to the Child Nutrition program.
One of the important contracts is that for shrimp because the species constitutes the most consumed seafood in the U.S. Shrimp suppliers include two Gulf Coast firms, namely Paul Piazza & Sons at $14.5 million and Ocean Select Seafood at $5.1 million.
Catfish supplies will in their part come from Heartland Catfish of Mississippi (MI) with a contract worth around $13.4 million. The rest will be courtesy of Itta Bena, also from MI, at $8.4 million.
How does the Program Work?
The USDA food buying program ensures proper nutrition in public schools through searchable databases.
Contributing organizations and suppliers can access various foods’ statuses through a dashboard that shows current meal catalogues.
In the 2024 calendar year, for example, the National Lunch Program alone listed 4,854.4 million meals. Its historical food serving catalogue has sometimes breached the 5 million -meal mark since 1969.
As one of the most import protein sources, competitively-priced fish supplies comprise a substantial portion of all nutritional purchases by the United States Department of Agriculture. To learn more on the numerical portion of seafood in annual federal purchases, skim the statistics below.
United States Department of Agriculture Seafood Buying Program Statistics
The USDA spends between $5 billion (2023) and $10 billion (2020) in food purchases that mainly constitute dairy and vegetables (60%). Seafood such as shrimp, catfish and salmon amount to hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
What is the portion of USDA’s seafood purchases among food procurements?
According to a Congress report, seafood purchases for nutritional programs grew from 2% in 2012 to 8% of all food purchases in 2023.
Which seafood constitutes the most nutrition program supplies?
Shrimp has made up the greatest dollar value of seafood purchases since 2020. In 2020, the USDA’s purchases of this fish amounted to over $75 million while in 2023 they had hit over $225 million. Catfish follows with over $175 million while salmon finishes third with over $100 million, as of 2023. Other fish cumulatively go to over $350 million.
Are all USDA purchases exact each year?
Due to beneficiary contributions, some annual food procurement go into surplus. These are known as bonus or entitlement purchases and they remain as emergency reserves. In 2023 they amounted to $2.3 billion, above the actual orders.
Do procurements come at market prices?
Using the National School Lunch Program as example, it is apparent that nutritional procurements come at reduced prices. Between 1969 and 2023, the program recorded between 0.5 and 3.2% in annual reduced price averages.