Aid factories reboot after US quietly amends food contracts

Earlier this week, Edesia was one month away from considering shutting down its factory. For years, the Rhode Island nonprofit has manufactured lifesaving peanut paste for starving children, working alongside a Georgia-based counterpart, Mana Nutrition, to ship that product across the world. But over the last few months, the crumbling of the U.S. Agency for International Development — which funds much of their work — has meant contract cancellations, reversals of those cancellations, and delays for both companies, resulting in hundreds of thousands of boxes idling in their warehouses. In stops and starts, some of that peanut paste — which is referred to as ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTF — has made it to the countries that need it. But both organizations had been told the U.S. government wouldn’t be renewing their contracts after June 27, placing the lives of tens of thousands of children on the line. “The only reason our lines were running was because they were in slow motion,” Edesia’s founder and CEO, Navyn Salem, told Devex. “We were only running two lines for months, trying to make our current order from 2024 take as long as humanly possible to buy us time to get answers for what’s next.” That all changed on Wednesday, when the U.S. government told Edesia and Mana that it was adding an amendment to their expiring contracts to temporarily continue their work. The news — which came in the form of a brief email — was a shock to Mana’s CEO and co-founder, Mark Moore, who didn’t recognize the sender when it first hit his inbox. “I was texting Navyn and everyone else saying: Did you get this email?” said Moore, adding that it came from a USAID contract specialist he didn’t know. “We were like, is this a mistake?” That single message cleared the way for Edesia and Mana to begin producing around $50 million worth of RUTF, or about 1.4 million boxes, between the two nonprofits, Salem told Devex. That would mean three to six months of operation for both facilities, and enough product to feed more than 1 million children across the world. “The minute [I heard the news] I was like, turn them on,” Salem said, referring to Edesia’s eight production lines in Rhode Island. For weeks, six of the eight had been halted, she explained, as Edesia didn’t have enough orders to justify running the full factory. In a typical year, USAID funds up to 80% of its work — and the crunch affected not just children. Farmers across the country sell their peanuts to Mana and Edesia, and some 300 people work across both organizations. Now, the amendment will unlock half of the organizations’ expected funds from the U.S. government for the next several months, Salem said, with the other half channelled through United Nations agencies that procure RUTFs from Edesia and Mana directly. While the latter contracts haven’t come through just yet, both Salem and Moore were optimistic that they were on their way. “This is such positive news, and it shows that some of the messaging is getting through to the administration that therapeutic feeding is worth saving,” said Moore. Still, it has been a difficult few months for Edesia and Mana, which have seen their orders canceled, un-canceled, and stalled since President Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze and review began. The U.S. has long funded half of the world’s RUTF supply, with most of that portion made by these two companies. And though emergency food aid was always supposed to be exempt from Trump’s hold, for weeks, hundreds of thousands of boxes were stalled in their warehouses. They were waiting for shipping contracts to be signed by USAID. And while Edesia’s contract was just signed — allowing 120,000 boxes of RUTF to be sent overseas — in Georgia, there are still 320,000 boxes sitting in Mana’s warehouse, Moore said. That’s enough RUTF for the equivalent number of children. “For you or I to miss a meal, that makes us hungry,” he added. “But for a child who is malnourished? You can’t do that for more than a couple of days. You lose them.” Still, the amendment to Edesia and Mana’s contracts may mean things are changing, especially given that the latest extension of Trump’s foreign aid freeze was meant to conclude on May 20 — the same day Mana received the email. As the State Department continues to subsume the little left of USAID, lawmakers across the country have also been pushing for the prioritization of RUTFs. Earlier this week, Rep. Gabe Amo, a Democrat from Rhode Island, pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio for answers on why Edesia’s shipments had been stalled, stating he would call the secretary every week until they were resumed. “This is a Band-Aid,” said Moore. “But it’s a great Band-Aid.”