USDA expects to buy Alaska pollock and pink salmon for food banks

The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects to buy frozen Alaska pollock fillets, whole-grain breaded pollock fish sticks and canned pink salmon for the federal program that stocks food banks and pantries, according to a notice published Tuesday.

The program, The Emergency Food Assistance Program, sends food to states for people in need. The notice lists what USDA expects to buy for it in fiscal 2027, the federal budget year that began Oct. 1.

USDA also buys Alaska seafood for other food aid. It bought more than $204 million in pollock and salmon in 2023 for schools, food banks and other programs, and earlier this month it sought bids on about 1.7 million pounds of Alaska pollock for federal food assistance.

The notice doesn't say how much fish USDA will buy. The seafood is part of an estimated $481.5 million in food the agriculture secretary is directed to buy for the program this year, alongside beef, chicken, eggs, peanut butter, fruit, vegetables and grains. How much of each item USDA buys depends on what it has to pay and how much states order, and changing market conditions could add foods or drop some.

Other seafood on the list includes Atlantic pollock, Atlantic haddock, catfish and shrimp.

Separately, about $360 million in surplus food USDA bought last year is set to go out to states this year, and Alaska pollock and groundfish are on that list, too.

Some of the fish could end up in Alaska, though the state's share of the program is small. A formula splits the food among states based on how many residents live in poverty and how many are unemployed. Alaska's share of the food USDA bought for the program last year was worth about $908,000, roughly 0.2% of the national total, according to USDA's allocation table.

In Alaska, the state Department of Education and Early Development runs the program, and Food Bank of Alaska orders the food for its partner agencies. The food ships free to 13 locations, from Ketchikan and Kodiak to Bethel, Unalakleet and Kotzebue, according to the food bank's 2024 program manual. Agencies can cook meals with it or hand it out for people to take home. Households earning up to three times the federal poverty guideline qualify, the manual says.