UNSPSC 50403903: Bottle gourd

The variety of gourds known as bottle gourd

UNSPSC 50403903 Bottle gourd is a Commodity code that names a single produce line item, but state and local governments buy it almost exclusively as part of broader fresh-produce and food-service contracts serving institutional food operations — prisons, state supported living centers, school districts, senior centers, and mental health facilities. The code shows minimal standalone demand; bottle gourd appears in no recent solicitations as a line item. Instead, recent activity under related produce codes (carrots, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, and generic fresh fruit and vegetable contracts) reveals that state and local buyers source produce primarily through consolidated food-service RFPs and IFBs that bundle dozens of produce items, prepared foods, and kitchen supplies into single procurements. Issuing bodies span state departments of corrections and health services, county school systems, county health coalitions, city senior-services programs, and independent school districts across Texas, Georgia, and Illinois. These buyers emphasize USDA compliance, food-safety certifications, bi-weekly to weekly delivery cycles, F.O.B. Destination pricing with freight prepaid, and traceability documentation by farm of origin where local-sourcing requirements apply.

Representative recent activity reflects this bundled buying pattern. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission has issued multiple IFBs for consumable foods and groceries serving state supported living centers (HHS0018082 in October 2026, HHS0017872 and HHS0017799 in August 2026), with response windows of one to three weeks and line-item counts ranging from 20 to 40 items across proteins, produce, dairy, and disposables. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has solicited fresh fruit and vegetable supply to warehouse locations and individual facilities (IW267420, IW267411, IW267376 in September and October 2026) via Bonfire portal, with October response deadlines. Georgia school districts — including Dougherty County Board of Education, Bartow County Schools, Bryan County Schools, and Early County Board of Education — have posted sealed-bid procurements for fresh produce (May to June 2026, response windows of two to four weeks) with estimated annual usage quantities from dozens to thousands of cases per item and local-sourcing preferences within 400 miles. The Illinois Department of Corrections and Department of Mental Health have issued small-purchase RFPs for fresh produce to individual facilities (August 2026). Madison Metropolitan School District (Wisconsin) and Head Start of Greater Dallas have posted produce bids for USDA child-nutrition programs. Activity concentrates in Texas, Georgia, and Illinois, with secondary representation from Wisconsin and occasional notices from Florida and other jurisdictions. Bottle gourd, if procured at all by these buyers, enters as one line item within a 20- to 40-item produce category within a larger food-service bundled procurement; pursuit should treat the code as an ingredient within broader institutional food-service contracts rather than a standalone commodity.