Food and Nutrition Programs

Buy American Provision Exceptions and Accommodation Plan

To:
School Food Authorities of the National School Lunch Program
From:
Robert M Leshin, Director
Date:
February 25, 2026

On September 29, 2025, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's Office for Food and Nutrition Programs (FNP) released a memorandum "Updates to the Buy American Provision". This memorandum outlines the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Final Rule, Child Nutrition Programs: Meal Patterns Consistent with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, detailing the recent Buy American Provision changes that went into effect at the start of School Year 2025-2026. FNP also released a memo titled "Northeast Food for Schools Challenge", detailing tools that have been made available by FNP to track food cost cap percentages.

To further support these changes, this memorandum outlines a process to identify and document exceptions to the Buy American Provision, and a process to apply for a temporary accommodation to the Buy American Provision Food Cost Percentage Cap.

Buy American Provision Limited Exceptions that contribute to the Food Cost Percentage Cap

The USDA allows only two limited exceptions to the requirement that SFAs must purchase domestic foods. SFAs must document the use of either exception to purchase non-domestic products and must be able to produce this documentation upon request.

  1. The product is listed on the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR) Non-available Articles list (48 CFR 25.104) and/or is not produced or manufactured in the U.S. in sufficient and reasonably available quantities of a satisfactory quality.

  2. Competitive bids reveal the costs of a domestic product are significantly higher than the non-domestic product. The SFA is responsible for determining the dollar amount or percentage that constitutes a significantly higher cost for a domestic product.

Required Justification Documentation for Limited Exceptions

Section 7 CFR 210.21(d)(5)(iii) of the NSLP regulations and section 7 CFR 220.16(d)(5)(iii) of the SBP regulations require SFAs to maintain documentation to demonstrate the use of these two limited exceptions to the Buy American Provision. This documentation must indicate that any purchases of non-domestic foods meet one of the two exceptions (refer to "Limited Exceptions" above). Two types of documentation are permitted.

  1. The product is listed on the FAR Non-available Articles List. Additional documentation is not required when SFAs purchase food items found on this list. SFAs must maintain a copy of the list on file with the applicable items highlighted.

  2. The SFA has completed the FNP Buy American Justification Form for School Nutrition Programs. Effective SY26-27, this form must be used to document the purchase of all non-domestic foods that are not on the FAR Non-available Articles List. A "domestic commodity or product" is an agricultural commodity that is produced in the United States (U.S.), and a food product that is processed in the U.S. substantially using agricultural commodities that are produced in the U.S. "Substantially" means that over 51 percent of the final processed product consists of agricultural commodities that were grown domestically.

SFAs must maintain this form on file with other required records in accordance with the NSLP and SBP regulations. FNP will evaluate the SFA's documentation and compliance with the Buy American requirement during the Administrative Review and Procurement Review of the school nutrition programs. This form must be completed by each SFA for each non-domestic food item.

USDA SFA Accommodation Plan for SY 2025-2026

The USDA has released a policy memo providing FNP the ability to approve temporary relief to SFAs that demonstrate they cannot meet the threshold for non-domestic food purchases established in the Final Rule. This process will allow SFAs, for school year 2025-2026, to exceed the 10 percent food cost cap while making progress toward coming into compliance with the new Buy American cap.

FNP will allow completion of the USDA's accommodation plan request form via the FY26 Compliance Packet component of the DESE Security Portal. FNP will not consider submission of completed accommodation request forms outside of digital submission in the DESE Security Portal.

Access to the Accommodation Plan will be made available in the DESE Security Portal upon request to SFAs that can demonstrate use of a tracking mechanism that monitored the purchase of non-domestic food during the first half of the 2025-2026 school year. Such tracking mechanisms may include active use of the food purchase tracking platform FoodTrails , made available to those participating in the Northeast Food for Schools Challenge, or the USDA's exceptions tracker template .

Prior to completing an Accommodation Plan, SFAs must reach out to their DESE Consultant for access in the FY26 Compliance Packet.

Plans may be submitted before or after reaching the 10 percent threshold, however, the SFA must maintain tracking documentation that demonstrates their monitoring efforts of the Buy American Provision food cost percentage cap for the entire 2025-2026 school year. FNP will be accepting Accommodation Plans from May 1 through August 31 on an annual basis. Approval for a Buy American Provision Temporary Accommodation Plan from FNP is subject to sufficient documentation.

Food purchase tracking documentation must be submitted with the Accommodation Plan in order to be considered for approval.

FNP's approval of a temporary accommodation may also outline the SFA's need to complete technical assistance and training to support future compliance with the Buy American Provision food cost percentage cap.

If you have questions about the accommodation or request process outlined in this memorandum you can reach out to nutrition@doe.mass.edu or 781-338-6480, or participate in the Tuesdays at 2pm where we will be providing updates and answering questions.

This institution is an equal opportunity provider.

Last Updated: March 6, 2026

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