UNSPSC 50302527: Maraschino cherries

The variety of cherries known as maraschino cherries

UNSPSC 50302527 Maraschino cherries is a Commodity code covering specialty preserved fruit and garnish items procured by state and local food service operations—school districts, city and county nutrition departments, child care programs, and correctional facilities—primarily to support meal preparation in institutional settings. Recent state and local solicitations show that maraschino cherries and similar specialty fruits are typically embedded in larger grocery or food-service procurement notices rather than solicited as standalone line items; they appear alongside hundreds of other food products in comprehensive school nutrition bids, child care meal programs, and institutional cafeteria contracts. The City of Edinburg, Texas child care meal program, the Madison Metropolitan School District's fresh produce contracts, the Bridgeport Board of Education's 1,100-line-item grocery bid, Head Start of Greater Dallas's CACFP procurement, and multiple Georgia school district produce and grocery bids all reflect the institutional food service context where preserved garnish items are purchased. Issuing bodies span elementary through secondary school nutrition programs (particularly common across Georgia districts such as Bryan County, Bulloch County, Glynn County, and Savannah-Chatham County), city departments of human services and senior programs, county school systems, child care agencies, and correctional food services.

Recent procurement activity clusters heavily in Texas and Georgia, with secondary activity in Florida, Connecticut, Mississippi, Oregon, and California. Representative solicitations include the City of Bridgeport Department of Public Purchases' grocery-items RFB (due June 30, 2026) encompassing 1,100+ line items across breakfast items, condiments, and produce; the Hillsborough County Public Schools fresh fruit and vegetable program RFP (proposals due March 11, 2026) for specialty produce to elementary school sites; and the GEC Buying Cooperative's statewide Georgia fresh produce and eggs RFP (due March 4, 2026) serving 30 districts across two regions. The County of Santa Clara's January 2026 ITB for dried fruits and nuts demonstrates demand for shelf-stable specialty items in correctional facilities. Maraschino cherries and similar garnish products typically anchor modest line-item volumes within broad food-service contracts; they do not drive procurement strategy but instead represent baseline requirements absorbed into multi-vendor, multi-category institutional food supply chains. Pursuit viability depends on existing relationships with institutional food distributors, capacity to integrate into school nutrition or public-agency meal-program frameworks, and ability to quote competitively against established suppliers within broader master-service agreements that award on lowest responsive-and-responsible or weighted-criteria bases.