The US government plans to include more seafood in its special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced in April its long-anticipated updates to the program will include more canned fish in more food packages, creating more equitable access to this under-consumed food.
The Biden-Harris Administration pumped in an extra $1 billion (€932,247 million) to the program for fiscal year 2024. Overall, the program was allotted over $7 billion (€6.5 billion) to provide nearly 7 million pregnant women, new mothers, infants with nutritional assistance.
This is the first update to the program since 2009. To date, canned fish has been included only for fully breast-feeding mothers since a pilot initiative in the early 2000s.
The new updates announced Monday add 6 ounces of canned fish to food packages for children (ages 1 through 4 years), including canned Alaska salmon.
The final rule also adds 10 ounces of canned fish to food packages for pregnant and postpartum participants, and 15 ounces for partially breast-feeding participants, while adjusting amounts for fully breast-feeding participants from 30 to 20 ounces, according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI)
Bruce Schactler, food aid program and development director at Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) said ASMI will continue to work to extend science-based access to seafood for children starting at 6 months, the only group not included in this seafood update.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025 recommendation of two 8-ounce servings of healthy seafood a week starting at 6 months for pregnant people.
He told IntraFish he also has been requesting more frozen fish for the program, but that overall the addition of canned salmon is a step in the right direction for the US government.
For the past year, seafood companies in Alaska and around the country have called for the USDA to play a larger role in boosting seafood use in domestic programs.
Schactler pointed out that seafood purchases overall only represent small percent of the USDA's food distribution programs, which serve children, low-income families, emergency feeding programs, Indian reservations and the elderly.
