UNSPSC 50190000: Prepared and preserved foods

UNSPSC 50190000 Prepared and preserved foods is a Family code encompassing the supply of shelf-stable, refrigerated, and frozen food products to state and local institutions—primarily school districts, but also corrections facilities, health-and-human-services agencies, state departments, and municipalities. State and local governments procure under this code for student meal programs (breakfast, lunch, snacks), detention center food service, employee nutrition programs, and summer food initiatives, buying everything from commodity proteins and grains to specialty items like legume-based snacks, cupped fruit, bread, dairy, and ice cream. Recent solicitations show districts purchasing 200+ line items per contract, with estimated annual volumes ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of servings depending on the product and district size.

Issuing bodies are dominated by K-12 school districts of varying size—from Klein ISD (50 campuses in Harris County, Texas) and Granite School District (44 schools across Salt Lake County, Utah) down to single-district or regional cooperative procurements in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Missouri. State departments and county corrections agencies appear occasionally; the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and California Department of Highway Patrol both solicited under this code in recent months. Cooperative purchasing vehicles are common: the Multi-Region Purchasing Cooperative, Region 7 and Region 10 Education Service Centers, and state buying groups (Massachusetts School Buying Group, Franklin County Technical School) aggregate demand across dozens of member districts. Geographic spread is nationwide, with recent activity clustered in Texas (Garland ISD, Klein ISD, Rockwood R-VI, Beaufort County detention center), California (Stockton Unified, Fontana Unified, CAL FIRE sack lunches), Utah (Granite School District), Connecticut (Meriden, West Hartford, New London, Bridgeport), Massachusetts (multiple regional school districts and the state OSD), and scattered activity in Florida, Missouri, Delaware, Michigan, and other states. Representative recent opportunities include Stockton Unified School District's ITB for USDA-compliant dairy products and juices (43 schools, estimated 887,075 cases of milk annually, bids due June 26, 2026); Fontana Unified School District's RFP for dry, frozen, and refrigerated foods with Product Formulation Statements required (proposals due June 24, 2026); Garland ISD's RFP for dry and staple foods (125 line items, $2.5 million estimated annual value, bids due March 26, 2026); and Region 10 Education Service Center's full-line grocery distributor RFP ($296.2 million estimated total value across three categories, bids due April 23, 2026). Notice types span IFB, RFP, and RFQ formats. Buy American provisions, whole-grain mandates, sodium and sugar limits, and HACCP food-safety certifications are standard across federal-fund-supported procurements; many include price-adjustment caps tied to the Consumer Price Index and multi-year renewal options (typically four one-year renewals after an initial one-year term).