Amendment 1 HDEC0520R0001.pdf

Amendment 0001 of the solicitation

HDEC05-20-R-0001

This amendment provides offerors all of the submitted questions and their corresponding answers. No additional or follow-up questions will be considered. Please note t at all submissions for this solicitation are due by 1:00PM EST on November 15, 2019. As stated in the Request for Proposal, interested vendors need to request access to the DOD SAFE site to send their submissions, prior to November 15, 2019.

Question 1. It is stated "The program will be able to analyze recipes...". Does this mean that the program will be able to create nutrition facts panels and ingredient lists from proprietary recipes, and then score these recipes for attribution? Or does this mean that DeCA will provide Nutrition Facts Panels and Ingredient lists based on DeCA's proprietary recipes, which will then be scored by the new database?

-Answer 1. The program will have the Nutrition Facts panel and ingredients of food items along with UPCs. This information can be used to analyze recipes that DeCA will provide for nutrition content and health claims as defined by the FDA.

Question 2. Can you provide a ballpark estimate on the number of products you’d like to be in your annual Nutritional Analysis?

-Answer 2. Our portfolio is around 46,000 products. This includes national brands and regional brands that DeCA would like included or the opportunity to include.

Question 3. Can you provide a ballpark estimate on the number of recipes that you’d be analyzing initially and then ongoing in a typical year?

-Answer 3. DeCA currently has over 250 Dietitian Approved recipes DeCA that needs analyzed and wants to create 2-3 new ones every two weeks. DeCA will take ownership of analyzing the recipes through the vendor’s database. DeCA wants the ability to analyze the recipe so adjustments can be made so that they can meet health claims like whole grain or low sodium.

Question 4. For each food item, what information do we need to store in this database?

-Answer 4. The database should have the information from the Nutrition Facts panel along with the information analyzed against the FDA’s definitions of health claims. It is required that the conversion to the Regular Amount Commonly Consumed as set forth in the CFR would be included too. The database should also include the ingredients so that recipe analysis can be done.

Question 5. What defines a complete dataset for this Nutritional Analysis Database?

-Answer 5. A robust dataset would include the majority of food items sold in the United States, to include popular regional brands, with the opportunity of adding additional UPC.s. The database should include the information on the Nutrition Facts panel analyzed against the FDA’s definitions of health claims such as low sodium and whole grain. These claims would be analyzed using the FDA’s definition of Regular Amount Commonly Consumed set forth in the CFR. It would also include ingredients so it would allow for DeCA to do recipe analysis.

Question 6. Is data source for this database Food Central Database on USDA website, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov <https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/> ?

-Answer 6. The data source should be the company providing this service. The USDA provides the definitions of health claims and Regular Amount Commonly Consumed.

Question 7. Will this project require 24/7 support or will it require the standard 7 am to 4 pm M-F support?

-Answer 7. The standard work day support is sufficient.

Question 8. What of the Technicians, the Database Administrator Technicians, how many do you need, if this project requires 24/7 support, I can determine the number of Administrators needed. Or does it only require the standard 7 am to 4 pm M to F support?

-Answer 8. The standard work day support is sufficient. For personnel, DeCA’s concern is more about maintaining the dataset. DeCA just need the ability to access this output.

Question 9. Will this support take place in the Government facility?

-Answer 9. Government personnel will access the dataset in a government facility, but the maintenance can occur anywhere.

Question 10. Does the Government have IT personnel that would set up access for the support contractors to gain access to the Analysis Database?

-Answer 10. The contractor should have ownership of this dataset and provide access to this data set.

Question 11. Will the Government provide Laptops for the Database Administrator Technicians to support the project?

-Answer 11. No, the support should occur offsite. Government furnished laptops are not necessary.

Question 12. Can the work be done in the Prime Contractor's main office for the support?

-Answer 12. Yes.

Question 13. Is the contractor required to have their own contractor's database besides the Primary Analysis Database that the contractor is supposed to support, as I am unclear with the requirements of the CLIN 0002 (CLIN0002 is for the additional UPCs for non-national and DeCA brand)?

Answer 13. However the vendor maintains this nutrition database is up to them. DeCA’s concern is the final output. DeCA carries many regional brands that may not be in the vendor’s database but DeCA requires that they be analyzed.

Question 14. Does the worker's require any security clearance, in order to work on a government database?

Answer 14. No, this is not a government owned database, the vendor should own and provide the database.

Question 15. What is the name of the RDBMS Database brand that required support?

Whatever database you have?

Answer 15. DeCA does not have a required RDBMS Database brand support. DeCA is looking for the nutrition analysis database output.

Question 16. Will not having references directly related to the nutrition industry preclude us from being considered?

-Answer 16. No, not having directly related to the nutrition industry will not preclude vendors from being considered. Vendors who lack references will be determined to have a Past Performance of “Neutral”.