Description
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has announced plans to purchase chicken fajita strips for school lunch and other domestic food nutrition assistance programs. Offers will be invited from the trade for frozen, fully cooked, dark chicken fajita strips, produced from ready-to-cook boneless, skinless drumsticks, thighs, and/or legs. The commodity will be packaged 5 or 10 pounds (2.27 or 4.54 kg) per plastic-film bag to a net weight of 30 pounds (13.61 kg) in each fiberboard shipping container. A purchase unit will consist of 1,300 shipping containers totaling 39,000 pounds (17,690 kg). Invitations will be issued inviting offers due the second and fourth Monday of each month. All offers must be submitted electronically through the Domestic Electronic Bid Entry System (DEBES) website at https://pcsd.usda.gov:3077/mdbc1000.exe?. Offers submitted by any means other than DEBES will be considered nonresponsive. There are some important changes to this year's program. A change to this year's specification is use of frozen meat if it is held in frozen storage for no more than 90 days from date of slaughter and is packaged to prevent freezer burn and dehydration (see page 3 of Commodity Specification for Chicken Fajita Strips). Under the food defense requirements, all non-conformances listed in the audit report must be addressed in writing to both the Contracting Officer and Auditor within 14 calendar days of the audit. Plans must also have been audited since March 1, 2009. Also, qualified bidders must provide annual financial updates to Dun & Bradstreet as detailed in the Qualification Requirements. Although most other provisions of the program are similar to the program operated last year, offerors are urged to carefully read all applicable terms and conditions of the Master Solicitation dated April 2009; Qualification Requirements for Prospective Contractors dated April 2009; Commodity Specification for Chicken Fajita Strips dated May 2009; and each Invitation. Inquiries may be made by telephoning (202) 720-7693 or addressing the Contracting Officer; USDA/AMS/Poultry Programs, Commodity Procurement Branch STOP 0260; 1400 Independence Ave., SW; Washington, DC 20250. An electronic version of this Food Purchase Report can be obtained through the world wide web via the Commodity Procurement Home Page at: http://www.ams.usda.gov/PYProcurement. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or a part of an individual's income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA's TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination write to USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.