ERS Food Data JOFOC_Redacted.pdf

(a) Cooperative Agreement 58-5000-3-0069 “Understanding the Statistical Properties of IRI Store-based and House-based Scanner Data”, which was completed using data from the original source. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires that Federal Statistical Agencies such as ERS have documentation on sample construction and selection, data collection and construction procedures, and the statistical characteristics and properties of data used in its analyses, and this cooperative agreement satisfied the OMB requirements. Selection of any other source would require duplication of this project for the new source’s data, which cost

In order to fulfill ERS’ mission of providing high-quality and objective analysis based on sound data, many USDA research projects rely on the information provided by these statistical properties studies. Research undertaken without an understanding of the data may be subject to significant revisions or result in flawed conclusions; therefore, many projects are dependent on the completion of these studies before proceeding. A change in vendors would require ERS to duplicate this process for the new source’s data, leading to significant, multi-year delays in providing timely, relevant research to public and private decision makers using these data.

The vast majority of cooperative agreements with external collaborators that are funded by the Food Economics Division rely exclusively on this household and retail data to complete their research goals and to adhere to established quarterly and yearly reviews. All of these projects (both those currently in progress from previous years and new projects that are funded and will be initiated on October 1, 2022) could be significantly delayed if selection of the data from another source is pursued.

(b) Task Order GS-00F-354CA/AG-32SB-D-16-0232 “Developing the Food Price

Environment and Replicate Store Weights” supported the to-come public data product called Monthly Food At Home Price Database (MFAHPD) and internal product called Replicate Store Weights (RSW). The aforementioned tasks have been designed to use the data from the original source, and if any other source is selected, those tasks would have to be repeated in order to adapt the project to the new source’s data, at a total cost of

Two years of work have been executed on this contract using the current vendor’s data for 2019 and 2020 MFAHPD and RSW. With a change in vendor, this project would be delayed until the delivery and processing of data from a new source could be completed. The already-completed tasks (e.g., 2016-2018 MFAHPD and 2012-2018 RSWs) would also need to be repeated using the new data set and no additional work could be completed in the interim, resulting in a multi-year delay on this project.

(c) Task Order AG-32SB-C-17-0015 (part of the IDIQ contract number AG-32SB-C- 12-0011) “Develop Linkage Between USDA/ARS Nutrition Data and Retail Purchase Data”, which is a joint effort between ERS, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP), and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to link multiple sets of data from across the aforementioned agencies. Selection of any other source would require duplication of this task order, at a cost of .

The total duplication of costs to the Government in the event of the selection of any other source would be at least . Additionally, there are other duplication costs and delays that the Government would incur that are very difficult to quantify.

First, the list of quality control standards (see Appendix B to the SOW), which was developed by ERS staff, would need to be totally redeveloped based on an alternate source’s data and data structure. In addition, all other internal and external procedures and processes to load, document, and access the data would need to be redeveloped for the new data source, requiring duplication of both internal efforts as well as those from ERS’ data management contractor. Reestablishing these processes for a new data set would result in significant delays in the availability of the data for use in research and would require considerable staff time that could otherwise be spent on research projects in support of ERS’ mission. Also, CNPP would be required to completely redevelop the prices that are used in the Dietary Guidelines, which would incur significant costs and have implications for their workload and schedule. It is highly unlikely that these substantial duplication costs would be recovered through competition.

6. Government Point of Entry (GPE) Announcement/Potential Sources A sources sought announcement was posted to the GPE, sam.gov, on June 23, 2022 with a response due date of June 29, 2022. The sources sought announcement requested that interested parties submit a capability statement in reference to the requirement’s statement of work. No responses were received before the submission deadline. No other potential sources have shown an interest in this requirement.

7. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Cost

A fair and reasonable cost will be determined with other than certified cost and pricing data in accordance with FAR 15.402(a)(2)(ii). An Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) was developed from a market research quote from the vendor.

The quoted cost included a component with tasks equivalent to tasks 3, 7, and 8 of AG-32SB-C-17-0015 (e.g., the so-called “status quo” of data assets) that was also identical in cost (i.e., the increase amount added for modification AG-32SB-C-17- 0015/0006). Subtracting the current total per annum costs of tasks 7 and 8 from both the current total cost and market research quote for the status quo data assets results in a figure of

While AG-32SB-C-17-0015 was awarded a sole-source, fixed price contract, this per annum figure was originally estimated from using the proposals received for the previous contract (AG-32SB-C-12-0010), which was held under full and open competition. In other words, the cost of the status quo