Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 5/27/20

Food banks and nonprofits across the country are receiving much-needed boxes of meat, dairy, fruits and vegetables under the department’s new $3 billion commodity purchase program. But USDA is under rising pressure from Congress to justify some of the distributors it selected to procure food from farmers and package it for food banks, including one in particular:

CRE8AD8 (pronounced “create a date”), a San Antonio event marketing firm, received $39 million to deliver food boxes in the Southwest, sparking questions about its qualifications from produce industry veterans, local lawmakers and top ag policymakers in Washington. The San Antonio Express-News also reported that the company made dubious claims about its clients, credentials and affiliations.

On Tuesday, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) sent Secretary Sonny Perdue a letter asking him to immediately issue a “stop work order” and revoke CRE8AD8’s contract — the seventh largest out of nearly 200 companies selected for the program — which Doggett claimed was “issued without a credible background check.” The company agreed to supply 750,000 boxes across the seven-state region by June 30 but has yet to deliver any boxes, he said.

“A family cannot eat an IOU,” Doggett wrote. “Poor performing, inexperienced contractors risk delaying food delivery or even delivering spoiled, dangerous food to families who need help now.”

Rep. Joaquín Castro, another Democrat from San Antonio, raised similar concerns about CRE8AD8 last week in a letter to USDA asking for an “investigation of the awards process and subsequent execution by all awardees.”