Welch Foods Inc., A Cooperative

Welch Foods Inc., A Cooperative supplies frozen and bottled Concord grape juice and related fruit juice products to federal food assistance programs as a prime contractor under total small business and partial small business set-asides. The vendor is a small agricultural cooperative based in Waltham, Massachusetts, operating as a child entity of the National Grape Co-Operative Association, Inc. (doing business as Welch's), with production facilities in North East, Pennsylvania.

Welch Foods' federal footprint centers almost entirely on Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) and Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) supply contracts for grocery and frozen juice products. The top five customer agencies account for 62% of recent awards by count, dominated by DLA (428 awards) and DeCA (103 awards, $289.6 million combined potential value), followed by USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (10 awards), USDA Food and Nutrition Service (5 awards, $4.4 million), and USDA Rural Housing Service (4 awards). The potential-value rankings diverge sharply — DeCA anchors 91% of combined potential value across the vendor's active portfolio at $289.6 million, while DLA's 428 awards reflect high-volume, lower-value transactional supply orders. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service's single award carries $11.4 million in potential value, reflecting recent commodity procurement contracts for National School Lunch Program grape juice deliveries.

Welch Foods operates under five primary parent vehicles: Indefinite Delivery Contracts HDEC0105G3126 and HDEC0105G3127 carrying 23 task orders each ($71.4 million and $198 million combined potential value respectively), Basic Ordering Agreements DLA13H8150031 and DLA13H8250031 with 23 and 22 task orders respectively, and Indefinite Delivery Contract DECA0100G2128 with 15 task orders. These vehicles account for the bulk of the vendor's active federal supply footprint.

Recent prime activity shows an uptick in 2025–2026, with six awards over two years after dormancy in 2022–2023. The vendor holds one award with ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months ($11.4 million potential value for USDA AMS commodity grape juice). Award history spanning since 1980 totals 886 prime awards with $335.3 million combined potential value, though 31% has been obligated to date. Capability concentration runs heavily to frozen fruit, juice, and vegetable manufacturing (19 awards), general line grocery wholesale (54 awards), and fruit and vegetable canning (9 awards), with PSC coding dominated by fruits and vegetables (716 awards) and jams, jellies, and preserves (62 awards). The vendor also holds a federal grant recipient relationship with USDA Rural Business Cooperative Services under a Value-Added Producer Grant program (project grant, 2021–2023) and a cooperative agreement with USDA Food for Education (awarded June 2024) to support market development and export expansion for U.S. agricultural commodities.