Consumer Data and Nutrition Research

 

To provide economic and other social science information and analysis for public and private decisions on agriculture, food, natural resources, and rural America. ERS produces such information for use by the general public and to help the executive and legislative branches develop, administer, and evaluate agricultural and rural policies and programs.

Active 10.253 Economic Research Service, Department of Agriculture B - Project Grants; L - Dissemination of Technical Information Fiscal Year 2018 ERS studies the relationship among the many factors that influence food choices and health outcomes. At the household level, research focuses on food price trends, income, and individual characteristics such as age, race and ethnicity, household structure, knowledge of diet and health, and nutrition education. At the industry level, research focuses on the interaction among firms, consumers, and government programs and policies. Children’s food access, food security, and child and adult obesity continue to be important foci of the ERS research program. ERS research related to adult and child obesity includes approaches taken from behavioral economics to investigate how psychological mechanisms related to food choices might contribute to poor dietary quality and obesity. Through its food assistance and nutrition research and by working closely with USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, ERS studies and analyzes the Nation’s nutrition assistance programs. These programs receive substantial Federal funding and affect the daily lives of millions of America’s children. Long-term research themes include dietary and nutritional outcomes, food program targeting and delivery, and measurement of program participation. ERS research is designed to meet the critical information needs of USDA, Congress, program managers, policy officials, the research community, and the public at large. ERS food safety research focuses on enhancing methodologies for valuing societal benefits associated with reducing food safety risks, understanding consumer response to food safety incidents, assessing industry incentives to enhance food safety through new technologies and supply chain linkages, and evaluating regulatory options and change. ERS research also investigates the safety of food imports and the efficacy of international food safety policies and practices.
Fiscal Year 2016 ERS studies the relationship among the many factors that influence food choices and health outcomes. At the household level, research focuses on food price trends, income, and individual characteristics such as age, race and ethnicity, household structure, knowledge of diet and health, and nutrition education. At the industry level, research focuses on the interaction among firms, consumers, and government programs and policies. Children’s food access, food security, and child and adult obesity continue to be important foci of the ERS research program. ERS research related to adult and child obesity includes approaches taken from behavioral economics to investigate how psychological mechanisms related to food choices might contribute to poor dietary quality and obesity. Through its food assistance and nutrition research and by working closely with USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, ERS studies and analyzes the Nation’s nutrition assistance programs. These programs receive substantial Federal funding and affect the daily lives of millions of America’s children. Long-term research themes include dietary and nutritional outcomes, food program targeting and delivery, and program dynamics and administration. ERS research is designed to meet the critical information needs of USDA, Congress, program managers, policy officials, the research community, and the public at large. ERS food safety research focuses on enhancing methodologies for valuing societal benefits associated with reducing food safety risks, understanding consumer response to food safety incidents, assessing industry incentives to enhance food safety through new technologies and supply chain linkages, and evaluating regulatory options and change. ERS research also investigates the safety of food imports and the efficacy of international food safety policies and practices. ERS research on food choices and health outcomes showed the following: • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants are less likely to drive their own car to do their primary food shopping and more likely to get rides from someone else or take public transit. However, these differences in transportation mode do not translate into differences in the types of stores used for grocery shopping among SNAP households. The National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) is the first survey to collect unique and comprehensive data about food purchases and acquisitions for a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. In March 2015, ERS published a report that compared shopping patterns of SNAP households to low- and higher income nonparticipant households and found that many households bypass the store that is closest to them to shop at another store. For example, among SNAP households, the nearest store was, on average, 2.0 miles from the household, but the store primarily used for grocery shopping was, on average, 3.4 miles from the household. Multiple intramural and extramural research projects are underway using FoodAPS with reports focusing on general food expenditures and WIC participant shopping behavior planned for release in 2016. • An estimated 86 percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2014, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.6 percent with very low food security because the household lacked money and other resources for food, resulting in reduced food intake and disruptions in eating patterns for one or more household members. Additional research focused specifically on children shows that an estimated 90.6 percent of households with children were food secure throughout the year in 2011, which denotes that all household members had consistent access to adequate food for active, healthy lives. The ERS food security statistics are widely recognized as the benchmark for measuring food security in the U.S., and support decision making on USDA food assistance and nutrition programs. • Following Dietary Guidance need not cost more, but many Americans would need to re-allocate their food budgets to do so. Behavioral changes can improve diet quality, but major improvements would require Americans to change how they allocate their food budgets across food groups. Most Americans across all income levels consume poor diets. Behavior changes, such as preparing food at home instead of eating out, are associated with improvements in diet quality. To realize the much larger improvements in diet quality required to meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, ERS research found that many Americans would need to reallocate their food budgets, spending a larger share on fruits and vegetables and a lower share on protein foods and foods high in solid fats, added sugars, and sodium. Briefings on this topic to senior USDA and other policy officials informed discussions of the upcoming release of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines. • An estimated 1,249 calories per capita per day are lost from the food supply. ERS published the latest estimates on the amount and value of food loss in the United States. These estimates are for more than 200 individual foods using ERS’s Loss-Adjusted Food Availability data. In 2010, an estimated 31 percent, or 133 billion pounds, of the 430 billion pounds of food produced was not available for human consumption at the retail and consumer levels. This amount of loss totaled an estimated $161.6 billion, as purchased at retail prices. For the first time, ERS estimates of the calories associated with food loss are presented in this report. The top three food groups in terms of the share of the total value of food loss at the retail and consumer levels are meat, poultry, and fish (30 percent), vegetables (19 percent), and dairy products (17 percent). Food loss data from ERS is used to support USDA’s Food Waste Challenge initiative and also provides a model for other countries’ efforts to estimate food loss. • Households living in low-income, low food-access areas have only slightly lower diet quality than other households and this difference is partially alleviated when these consumers travel farther from their homes to purchase food. About 10 percent of the U.S. population lives in low-income areas more than 1 mile from the nearest supermarket. The diet quality of these consumers may be compromised by their food environment. Some may be unable to reach supermarkets regularly or without effort, instead buying food from closer stores that offer less healthy food products. ERS investigated the correlation between households that live in low-income, low-access areas and their purchases of 14 major food groups that vary in dietary quality using supermarket scanner data. Briefings on this topic to senior USDA and other policy officials informed discussions of continuing efforts to improve food access for low-income households across the U.S. ERS research on USDA’s food and nutrition assistance programs found the following: • ERS linked 2008-12 SNAP administrative records to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) on the use of SNAP and other public assistance programs to provide better information on SNAP receipt than that which would be estimated by the ACS alone. SNAP provides food and nutrition benefits to low-income households based on a formula that adjusts the benefit amount a household receives based on monthly need. ERS assessed the extent to which SNAP reaches the poorest households, also known as benefit targeting, by estimating benefit receipt by annual household income relative to poverty. Estimates of SNAP targeting toward low-income households improve when using either of two measures of intensity of SNAP participation relative to measures of ever-in-the-year participation. Replacing survey-based data on SNAP benefit receipt with administrative records of SNAP benefit receipt and adjusting the survey households to more closely reflect administrative SNAP units also improves estimates of targeting to low-income participants. Briefings to senior official at FNCS and FNS informed decision makers about the effect of more expansive data on participation measures. • School meal programs are adjusting to stronger nutritional standards, but face challenges in maintaining paid lunch participation to meet revenue goals. School foodservice programs face ongoing tradeoffs between meal cost, student participation, and nutrition quality. Changes mandated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 strengthened nutritional standards for meals and competitive foods and set minimum levels for paid meal revenues, while new options allow more schools to offer free meals to all students at reduced administrative burden. An ERS review of recent research results and new data on school lunch participation rates suggests that while many school districts have adjusted to new standards, maintaining paid meal participation remains most challenging for smaller and more rural districts. Briefings to senior USDA officials on this topic have informed USDA efforts to help States meet the challenges related to improving nutrition within allotted budgets. ERS research on the safety of the nation’s food supply found the following: • Cost estimates of foodborne illnesses data provide Federal agencies with consistent, peer-reviewed estimates of the costs of foodborne illness that can be used in analyzing the impact of Federal regulations. ERS’s Cost of Foodborne Illness data product, produced in collaboration with the Food Safety and Inspection Service, provides detailed data about the costs of major foodborne illnesses in the United States, including identification of specific disease outcomes for foodborne infections caused by 15 major pathogens in the United States, associated outpatient and inpatient expenditures on medical care, associated lost wages, and estimates of individuals’ willingness to pay to reduce mortality resulting from these foodborne illnesses. It also provides stakeholders and the general public with a means of understanding the relative impact of different foodborne infections in the United States. Cost estimates of foodborne illnesses have been used to help inform food-safety policy discussions, and these updated cost estimates provide a foundation for economic analysis of food safety policy. • New surveys on food safety practices. ERS launched an initiative to collect primary data on current food safety practices for produce growers and post-harvest firms to provide a baseline of compliance costs prior to the full implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The surveys will be completed by NASS in January 2016, and ERS will use the data in estimating the potential economic impacts of FSMA provisions on the fresh produce and animal feed sectors. • Consumers respond differently to foodborne disease outbreaks of different severities. A case study of pathogen-related recalls of cantaloupe in 2011 and 2012 suggests consumers’ food purchase responses take into account the relative risk severity of specific pathogens. Information from news media apparently plays a role. Federal health and safety officials warned consumers away from cantaloupes in 2011 and again in 2012. The warnings occurred under similar market conditions but were for contamination by two different foodborne microorganisms that posed entirely different health risks. After consumers were informed about the risk with the higher fatality rate, the demand for cantaloupes fell and consumers substituted other melons. No such shifts in demand were evident under the lower fatality risk, despite more illnesses attributed to it. • Establishments that bid on contracts to supply the USDA’s National School Lunch Program had relatively higher levels of food safety, as measured by fewer samples of meat testing positive for Salmonella, than other establishments supplying ground beef to the commercial market. In December of 2014, ERS published a report that examined the food safety performance of suppliers of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and found evidence of strategic behavior in which managers use information about their establishment’s past food safety performance to decide whether to bid on contracts to supply the NSLP. Research results from this report were presented at multiple briefings to senior USDA officials.
Fiscal Year 2017 ERS studies the relationship among the many factors that influence food choices and health outcomes. At the household level, research focuses on food price trends, income, and individual characteristics such as age, race and ethnicity, household structure, knowledge of diet and health, and nutrition education. At the industry level, research focuses on the interaction among firms, consumers, and government programs and policies. Children’s food access, food security, and child and adult obesity continue to be important foci of the ERS research program. ERS research related to adult and child obesity includes approaches taken from behavioral economics to investigate how psychological mechanisms related to food choices might contribute to poor dietary quality and obesity. Through its food assistance and nutrition research and by working closely with USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, ERS studies and analyzes the Nation’s nutrition assistance programs. These programs receive substantial Federal funding and affect the daily lives of millions of America’s children. Long-term research themes include dietary and nutritional outcomes, food program targeting and delivery, and measurement of program participation. ERS research is designed to meet the critical information needs of USDA, Congress, program managers, policy officials, the research community, and the public at large. ERS food safety research focuses on enhancing methodologies for valuing societal benefits associated with reducing food safety risks, understanding consumer response to food safety incidents, assessing industry incentives to enhance food safety through new technologies and supply chain linkages, and evaluating regulatory options and change. ERS research also investigates the safety of food imports and the efficacy of international food safety policies and practices. ACT: FY 2012 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, Public Law 109-97, 7 U.S.C. 292, 411, 427, 1441a, 1621-1627, 1704, 1761-68, 2201, 2202, 3103, 3291, 3311, 3504; 22 U.S.C. 3101; 42 U.S.C. 1891-93; 44 U.S.C. 3501-11; 50 U.S.C. 2061 et seq, 2251 et seq. 2 CFR Part 400, 2 CFR Part 415, 2 CFR Part 416, 7USC 3318c Any individual or organization in the U.S. and U.S. Territories is eligible to receive the popular or technical research publications that convey the research results, although there may be a fee. Any individual or organization in the U.S. and U.S. Territories is eligible to receive the popular or technical research publications that convey the research results, although there may be a fee. Not applicable. Preapplication coordination is not applicable. 2 CFR 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards applies to this program. Requests for technical information may be made to the Chief, Publishing and Communications Branch, Economic Research Service (ERS), 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20520-1800. None. Not applicable. Not applicable. Not applicable. Other Not applicable. ERS performs economic research and analyses related to U.S. and world agriculture that address a multitude of economic concerns and decision making needs of Federal, State, and local governments, farmers, farm organizations, farm suppliers, marketers, processors, and consumers. There are no restrictions on the use of ERS produced information. The objective of the consumer data program is to enhance existing public and private data collection systems and availability to answer the most important policy questions. This objective is achieved by: (1) supplementing existing government surveys with separate modules when possible, (2) integrating and linking data from disparate surveys, (3) investing in proprietary data, and (4) enhancing existing surveys. Performance Reports: Progress reports, financial reports, financial statements, and inventions and subawards reports. The frequency of reports is outlined in the terms of the agreement. N/A Financial records, supporting documents, statistical records, and all other records pertinent to an award shall be retained for a period of 3 years from the date of submission of the final expenditure report or, for awards that are renewed quarterly or annually, from the date of the submission of the quarterly or annual financial report, as authorized by the Federal awarding agency. Statutory formula is not applicable to this assistance listing.

Matching requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. Other Other None/Not specified. Nancy A. Thomas
355 E Street SW, Room 5-254
Washington, DC 20024-3231 US
NThomas@ers.usda.gov
Phone: 2026945008 http://www.ers.usda.gov 12-1701-0-1-352 (Cooperative Agreements) FY 18$1,604,284.00; FY 19 est $1,175,785.00; FY 20 est $1,000,000.00; FY 17$1,100,000.00; FY 16$1,074,282.00; - (Project Grants) FY 18$149,900.00; FY 19 est $0.00; FY 20 est $0.00; FY 17$2,700,000.00; FY 16$2,691,366.00; - Not applicable/available. Not applicable. Fiscal Year 2016 ERS will identify key economic issues affecting food prices, food access and availability, food consumption patterns, and food safety. ERS will use sound analytical techniques to understand the immediate and long-term efficiency, efficacy, and equity consequences of alternative policies and programs aimed at ensuring access by children and adults to safe, nutritious, affordable, and adequate meals. ERS ongoing research will also explore factors that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of USDA Food and Nutrition Assistance programs. ERS will effectively communicate research results to policy makers, program managers, and those shaping efforts to promote abundant, safe, and healthful food at home and abroad. Examples of these activities include the following: • Providing economic analysis of the food marketing system to understand factors affecting the availability and affordability of food for American consumers. • Providing annual estimates of the quantity of food available for human consumption, and measures of disappearance and loss in the food system. • Providing economic analysis of how people make food choices, including demands for more healthful, nutritious, and safer food, and of the determinants of those choices, including prices, income, education, and socio-economic characteristics. • Conducting analyses of the benefits and costs of policies to change behavior to improve diet and health, including nutrition education, labeling, advertising, and regulation. • Conducting economic analyses of the impacts of the Nation’s domestic nutrition assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; and the Child Nutrition Programs. • Conducting research on food program targeting and delivery to gauge the success of programs aimed at needy and at-risk population groups, and to identify program gaps and overlaps. • Conducting research on program dynamics and administration, focusing on how program needs change with local labor market conditions, economic growth and recession, and how changing State welfare programs interact with food and nutrition programs. • Conducting food safety economics research, with the goal of providing a science-based approach to valuing food safety risk reduction, assessing industry costs of food safety practices, and understanding the interrelated roles of government policy and market incentives in enhancing food safety. • Providing decision makers and the public with food safety information through publications, web materials, and briefings that address the economics of food safety, including consumer knowledge and behavior, industry practices, the relationship between international trade and food safety, and government policies and regulations. • Working with Federal food safety agency partners to evaluate available food borne illness data related to meat, poultry and egg products, and to develop more accurate measures of the effectiveness of regulatory strategies in reducing preventable food borne illness. • Building food-price and food-consumption databases to provide a basis for analyzing the impacts of food policy. --Assessing Alternative Methods for Measuring Food Security Among Households with Children -- Understanding Produce Purchasing Behavior, Obesity, and BMI: Empirical Results from IRI Household Panel and Med Profiler Data -- Local Market Structure, Store Characteristics, and Performance among Independent Grocers -- Effect of Retail Market Structure and other Food Environment Characteristics on the Healthfulness of Consumer Food Purchases --Consumer Preferences for Costly Brands and Products: Implications for Cost Containment in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program -- Does the amount of SNAP benefits influence food choices and expenditures? -- The effects of pricing strategies on the nutritional quality of food purchases by SNAP and non-SNAP households -- Community Eligibility Provision Take-Up by Rural vs. Urban School Districts and Effects on School Meal Participation and Student attendance -- Summer Meal Program participation by Rural vs. Urban School Districts -- SNAP and Child Health: Evidence from Missouri Administrative Data -- The Fill-In Trip Purchase Decision by SNAP and WIC Participants: An Analysis of Pricing, Nutrition, and Store Choices -- Does inclusion on the WIC food list expand placement of food brands? -- Performance Indicators of WIC Vendor Quality and Participant Satisfaction -- Funding Research on Food Security Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics -- Exploring ways to increase healthy purchases within shoppersĆ and retailersĆ budget constraints -- Health Outcomes and Redemption Behaviors among Virginia WIC Participants -- Changes in Low-Income HouseholdsĆ Spending Patterns in Response to the 2013 SNAP Benefit Cut -- Understanding the Statistical Properties of IRI Store-based and House-based Scanner Data -- Expert Technical Panel on Technical Questions and Data Gaps in the ERS Loss-Adjusted Food Availability (LAFA) Data Series -- Expanding the Impact of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs -- Consumer Level Food Loss: An Update of Estimates for Cooking Loss and Uneaten Food at the Consumer Level -- FoodAPS-2 Geography Study
Fiscal Year 2019 ERS conducts research on the economic forces influencing consumer food choices and the effect of these choices on nutrition and health outcomes. To understand these relationships, ERS examines the interactions between factors such as food prices, grocery store accessibility, food labeling, household income, and household composition. Market and industry level factors examined include product offerings by firms, changes in store types and store formats, firm and consumer reactions to food safety incidences, and the role of government programs and the food system as a whole in the macro-economy. ERS analyzes USDA’s food and nutrition assistance programs, often coordinating research priorities with USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service. These programs receive substantial Federal funding and affect the daily lives of millions of America’s children. Long-term research themes include food security outcomes, dietary and nutritional outcomes, food program targeting and delivery, and measurement of program participation. ERS food safety research focuses on enhancing methodologies for valuing societal benefits associated with reducing food safety risks, understanding consumer and producer responses to food safety incidents, assessing industry incentives to enhance food safety through new technologies and supply chain linkages, and evaluating regulatory options and change. ERS research also investigates the safety of food imports and the efficacy of international food safety policies and practices. Selected Examples of Recent Progress: • An estimated 88.2 percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2016, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (11.8 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 4.5 percent with very low food security because the household lacked money and other resources for food, resulting in reduced food intake and disruptions in eating patterns for one or more household members. Declines from 2016 in food insecurity overall and in very low food security were statistically significant. The rate of food insecurity declined from 12.3 percent in 2016, and very low food security declined from 4.9 percent, continuing downward trends. Among children, changes from 2016 in food insecurity and very low food security were not statistically significant. Children and adults were food insecure in 7.7 percent of U.S. households with children in 2017, versus 8.0 percent in 2016. The ERS food security statistics are widely recognized as the benchmark for measuring food security in the U.S., and support decision making on USDA food and nutrition assistance programs. The authors briefed senior USDA officials on the report’s findings and a webinar was presented on the day of publication to field press inquiries and related interest that the report generated. • When labor market conditions were measured at the local level in Oregon, researchers estimated a greater responsiveness by SNAP recipients to labor market conditions, as opposed to what has been measured at the State or national levels. Using three different measures of labor market conditions—the unemployment rate, employment aggregates, and new hires—local labor market conditions were strongly linked to the probability of leaving SNAP in Oregon using SNAP administrative data. Labor market conditions showed the largest effects on SNAP spell lengths when using commuting zones, which capture areas where people both live and work. The results show that 3 in 5 SNAP recipients left the program within a year or less. When labor market conditions were measured using commuting zones, a 10 percent increase in aggregate employment raised the share of recipients who finished their SNAP spell in 12 months or less by about 8.8 percent. Increases in total employment and new hires in the manufacturing, food service, and lodging industries were associated with a higher probability of able-bodied, working-age adults exiting SNAP. • Food away from home has become increasingly integral to the American diet. In 2010, the share of Americans’ food budget spent on food away from home (FAFH) reached just above 50 percent (up from 41 percent in 1984), surpassing the share spent on food at home (FAH) for the first time. Likewise, Americans’ share of energy intake from FAFH rose from 17 percent in 1977-78 to 34 percent in 2011-12, with differences in growth across types of FAFH such as full- and quick-service restaurant foods, school meals, etc. Along with the demand for FAFH, availability of FAFH has also increased, with much of the growth in recent years attributable to quick-service restaurants. The growing presence of FAFH in Americans’ diets reflects changes in consumer demand and producer behavior and affects the health and nutrition of individuals over time. ERS published a multi-chapter report that takes a comprehensive look at the role of FAFH in American diets, exploring nutritional composition of FAFH and key Federal programs that may influence FAFH. The report also discusses how FAFH choices and availability relate to diet quality, income, age, and other socioeconomic factors. • Among the many factors that drive demand for convenience foods, ERS finds that having a higher income, being employed, participating in food assistance programs, age, and presence of children in the home are important, while proximity to eating out places is not important. The report examines the demand for convenience foods at full-service restaurants as well as fast food restaurants, and also demand for supermarket food by whether the food is “ready-to-eat” or not. Participation in food assistance programs is associated with increased demand for both kinds of supermarket foods: ready-to-eat and non-ready-to-eat food. Compared to middle-income households, higher income households are more likely to go to full-service restaurants and less likely to go to fast food restaurants, but somewhat surprisingly, low-income households are more likely to go to fast food restaurants than are middle income households. Time constraints from employment shift demand from food at home to food away from home. Employment of all adults in a household lowers purchases of ready-to-eat food by 12 percent and increases purchases in full-service restaurants by 72 percent relative to households where not all adults are employed. The presence of children in a household increases demand for convenience foods. Households with children purchase 19 percent more fast food and 38 percent less full-service restaurant food than households without children. • The nutritional quality of foods purchased or otherwise acquired by the overall population scored 53 out of 100 points using USDA’s HEI-2010 measure. ERS assessed the nutritional quality of households’ acquired foods using the Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010), a measure based on how well the mix of foods acquired compares to recommendations from the USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The report finds that nutritional quality varies across population subgroups defined by income and by participation in USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP-participating households had lower HEI-2010 scores than both low-income nonparticipating and higher income households. However, these findings do not prove a causal link between SNAP participation and low diet quality because we did not control for the many ways SNAP-participating households differ from non-participating households, such as age, household composition, and education. Across all income groups, acquisitions from food-away-from-home (FAFH) sources were of lower nutritional quality than those from food-at-home (FAH) sources, such as grocery stores, supermarkets, and supercenters. However, for higher income households, the difference in nutritional quality between FAFH and FAH was greater than it was for SNAP-participating households, possibly reflecting that higher income households acquired more FAFH from restaurants or fast-food; whereas SNAP-participating households acquired more of their FAFH from sources such as school meals or meals with friends and family. • SNAP policy has a history of tradeoffs and challenges. As one of the mainstays of the country’s safety net, USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) accounts for over half of USDA's annual budget. With origins in the Great Depression, SNAP participation and expenditures have grown and declined in response to economic conditions and policy changes. The challenges policymakers face today about how to best design the program are similar to ones faced in the past. ERS examines this history along with analysis of six policy issues that have resurfaced in recent SNAP policy debates. The report discusses the tradeoffs identified by economists on six issues: block grant proposals, store eligibility requirements, limits on foods that can be purchased by participants, adequacy of benefit amounts, program eligibility rules, and work requirements. By providing historical and analytical perspectives on major program design changes, this report informs current policy debates. • Millennials are the largest and most diverse generation in the United States, and they spend more on food away from home than other generations. Millennials, born between 1981 and the mid-2000s, will be an important driver in the food economy for years to come. Their grocery store habits may change as they age, but current differences from older generations could have implications for future food demand. Comparing across similar income groups, Millennials spend more of their budget on food away from home, they eat out more often, they spend less time cooking and eating, and the foods that they do eat at home are easier to prepare. Among all generations, Millennials devote the smallest share of food expenditures to grains, white meat, and red meat. Though Millennials spend less on food at home in total, they allocate more proportionately to prepared foods, pasta, and sugar/sweets than any other generation. When partitioning by income per capita, fruit expenditure shares for Millennials essentially matched those of Traditionalists (those born before 1946), who allocate the largest share to fruits. Moreover, as Millennials become richer, they apportion more of their food at home budget to vegetables, suggesting that the millennial generation may have a stronger preference for fruits and vegetables compared to older generations. • Food labels can give consumers valuable information that they cannot verify for themselves, but labels can also be misleading. Food suppliers may voluntarily offer only information that increases demand for their products. Also, consumers may not understand label claims, and instead of facilitating economic activity, labels may increase inefficiency in the marketplace. Food label claims have proliferated over the past three decades. Some of these have been federally mandated and some have been voluntary. Some may be certified or verified by the Government or by private-sector entities. A recent ERS report examines five case studies from the past 30 years that highlight roles the Federal Government has played in food labels and the informational strengths and weaknesses of various labels. These case studies include the implementation of Federal standards for the “Nutrition Facts” label (mandatory for many foods), the USDA Organic seal, the voluntary (private sector) labeling of food as made without genetically engineered ingredients, the voluntary labeling of meat and poultry products as raised without antibiotics (RWA), and the labeling of the federally defined country of origin of the product (COOL), which is mandatory for some food products. • Many growers who would be subject to the Food Safety Modernization Act’s “Produce Rule” (PR) already had some food safety practices in place. Using a unique set of survey data, ERS research explored U.S. produce growers’ on-farm microbial food safety practices before implementation of FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act “Produce Rule.” The study found growers’ rates of adopting food safety practices before they were required to do so varied by farm size, with larger growers having adopted food safety practices at higher rates than smaller growers. Smaller farms also needed to make more changes than larger farms to meet PR standards. The research also found that some growers who would not be covered by the PR and would not be required to adopt new food safety practices had done so anyway. This represents a watershed moment in understanding practices of individual produce growers, as the most recent comparable data was collected in the 1990s, and was heavily cited in FDA’s Produce Safety Rule. The report was immediately picked up by numerous trade publications. In less than two months the report was viewed over 1,400 times on the ERS website alone and ERS briefed senior USDA officials and presented results to industry advisory boards, and at professional meetings.