Latest news with #TherapeuticFood
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amid USAID chaos, some humanitarian aid groups still aren't getting paid for lifesaving programs
Edesia, a Rhode Island-based company that makes 'Plumpy'Nut' — packets of specially fortified and highly caloric peanut butter paste that saves the lives of severely malnourished babies and children — recently laid off 10% of its staff and even briefly paused production altogether for more than two weeks. Its CEO says they are having serious cash flow problems. In Georgia, MANA Nutrition — a plant that produces similar 'Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food,' or RUTF, packets of peanut butter — is leaning heavily on a line of credit from Bank of America to stay afloat for the time being, according to the company's founder. Neither company has gotten paid by the US Agency for International Development in months — not since the last quarter of 2024. 'We are irreparably breaking a good system for no particular reason,' said Mark Moore, MANA's CEO and co-founder. 'And the impact on children — it's not at all dramatic to say that it's going to cost, at the very least, tens of thousands of lives.' Edesia and MANA are among the scores of organizations grappling with canceled USAID contracts and little to no payment from the agency. Both Edesia and MANA had their USAID contracts canceled before they were reinstated; for MANA, the cancellation was rescinded after Elon Musk personally weighed in. USAID, spurred by a court ruling, has begun issuing payments to other organizations — but those payments have been sporadic and minimal. A federal judge has ordered USAID to pay out contracts and grants for all foreign assistance work done by mid-February. However, processing those payments has been slow going, and as of a March 27 court filing, more than 6,000 payments still needed to be processed. The payment issues are among the many consequences of the Trump administration's efforts to abruptly shut down USAID and dramatically restructure foreign aid. The combination of the US government's sweeping freeze on foreign aid in late January, mass reductions in USAID staff, and thousands of contract terminations had already caused a significant impact — even for aid groups that are still supposed to be receiving money. Some of those same groups are owed money for work done before the freeze. The administration's move to shutter the agency by July is expected to further exacerbate the consequences. The respective CEOs of Edesia and MANA Nutrition, Navyn Salem and Moore, told CNN in recent days that they can only guess when they might next get paid by USAID for the hundreds of thousands of boxes of lifesaving peanut butter paste they have already produced for the government agency. Their contacts at USAID — who, according to Salem and Moore, were initially fired or put on leave before eventually being brought back to work — can no longer provide them with any clear answers. Other humanitarian organizations have similarly struggled to get answers as USAID has been gutted and their usual points of contacts are cut off from the internal systems. They fear this will only get worse as the vast majority of USAID personnel are expected to lose their jobs as the Trump administration moves to abolish the agency and fold it under the State Department. Fewer than 900 USAID direct-hire employees remained on the job as of March 21, according to another notice from the agency to Congress. USAID said in a letter sent to Congress last week that it issued more than $250 million in payments between March 10 and March 21. However, sources who spoke to CNN said payments to aid groups have trickled in — if they have arrived at all. Several humanitarian officials told CNN they are still owed money for work they had completed. One humanitarian official said their organization has received 'so little it's basically nothing.' 'They need to start issuing significant payments for existing lifesaving programs or organizations won't be able to continue,' they told CNN. An association that represents humanitarian aid contractors has heard from the more than 70 groups they represent that they are getting paid in 'dribs and drabs,' a source familiar said. Another humanitarian official said if they don't get paid, even for grants that have not been terminated, their organization cannot continue their programs. 'We might have to shut them down proactively simply because we cannot pay salaries or rent,' they told CNN. Because of slow payment or funding cuts, many humanitarian organizations have had to furlough or lay off staff. Nearly 19,000 American jobs have been lost and more than 166,000 global jobs have been lost, according to USAID Stop Work. A State Department spokesperson confirmed to CNN that 'between March 10 and March 21, 2025, USAID disbursed a total of over $257 million,' which 'equates to approximately $25 million per business day.' 'This work continues, as does streamlining the previously problematic and fragmented payment structure,' the spokesperson said. Even if payments are made, it is not enough to fully stem the impact of USAID's dismantlement. 'Some of the damage is irreparable,' the first humanitarian official said. 'There are so many layers of impact. We can rehire, but trust with communities and some governments is broken.' 'No one will think of the US as a sure thing anymore,' they told CNN. With the suspension of assistance and stop-work orders put in place in late January, efforts to combat infectious diseases like tuberculosis and to treat people, including children, with HIV/AIDS have been stymied. Local employees who worked with nonprofit organizations abroad may now be at risk in countries where affiliation with the US makes them a target. Moore, the MANA CEO, said his organization is making contingency plans for USAID potentially never returning to the equation, including by reaching out directly to nongovernmental organizations that could partner in distributing his company's packets of peanut butter. 'We're scrounging hard to drum up partners who could go around the USAID system,' he said. 'It's a stopgap idea, but planning long term will be hard.' CNN's Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.
CNN
28-02-2025
- Business
- CNN
Trump assault on USAID leaves plant that makes peanut butter for malnourished kids scrambling
MANA Nutrition makes a special kind of peanut butter paste that many humanitarian aid workers are familiar with. It is fortified with milk and essential vitamins, packed with calories and sent to severely malnourished children around the world, including some countries in Africa. On Wednesday afternoon, Mark Moore, the CEO and co-founder of the Fitzgerald, Georgia-based plant, got word from the US Agency for International Development: MANA's contracts with the agency were being canceled. CNN spoke with Moore just minutes after he said he received a series of contract termination letters from USAID. Still reeling, Moore described the furious scramble that the news had set off at his plant. One of his first orders of business: Asking his workers mid-production to immediately stop putting labels that say 'USAID' on the pouches that the peanut butter paste is squirted into. 'Every one of those packets has printing on it that says, 'From the American people. USAID.' And if… I don't deliver it through USAID contracts, it's trash. I can't distribute it,' Moore said. 'It's not like I can squeeze that peanut butter back out of that packet and put it in a new packet. So it's a problem. A huge problem.' His predicament is just one of the many aftershocks of the Trump administration's rapid decimation of USAID, which has suffered more severely than almost any other agency across the government. Thousands of positions at the federal agency have been eliminated and the vast majority of its officials have been placed on leave. Contracts are being canceled left and right, leaving many in the humanitarian aid world reeling. In normal times, Moore's plant produces 10 pouches of the lifesaving paste every second. Each small bag contains 500 calories' worth of the special peanut butter — which does not require refrigeration or additional preparation — and is labeled 'RUTF' for 'Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food.' USAID has been a major supporter and funder of RUTF products over the years. In the middle of a phone call with a CNN reporter, Moore asked to switch to FaceTime to show rolls of USAID-emblazoned packaging film in his office that gets turned into the sealed pouches of peanut butter. 'So this is 45 boxes. USAID-branded. This is our UNICEF stuff,' he said, referring to the United Nations agency tasked with providing aid to children worldwide. In their warehouse, Moore said, there are around 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded RUTF ready to be shipped out. He estimates that if USAID doesn't pay MANA for those boxes, he will have at least $10 million in wasted peanut butter pouches on his hands. And that doesn't include an additional $14 million in reimbursements from the federal government that he was already waiting for. He is unsure whether or when he will get paid. Erin Boyd, a USAID nutrition adviser who was laid off from the agency in January, told CNN it is not an overstatement to say that children will die as a result of the decimation of USAID and funding for RUTF. 'Even before this happened, there wasn't enough funding to treat all the children who were presenting wasting.' Boyd said. Wasting, according to UNICEF, refers to a life-threatening form of malnutrition: 'Children with wasting are too thin and their immune systems are weak, leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death,' the group says. And it's not just the production of RUTF that Boyd is alarmed about. She worries that the overhaul of USAID will mean the elimination of countless humanitarian programs around the world designed to save impoverished children. 'It will just mean that kids' programs don't exist; the children don't even get identified as malnourished, and they'll die at home and we won't know,' Boyd said. CNN reached out to the State Department, which now oversees USAID, for comment. For now, Moore is grasping for any clarity — but nobody seems to have any answers. MANA had received around a half-dozen contract termination letters by Wednesday evening. That accounts for 'most of the contracts' that MANA has with USAID, he said, but it was impossible to get anything resembling real guidance from anyone at USAID on how his company should proceed. That's because Trump's assault on the agency has left thousands of positions eliminated and the majority of the agency's employees put on administrative leave. One person placed on leave amid the Trump assault on the agency is the USAID contract officer that Moore has dealt with in the past on MANA's contracts. 'He called me from his personal cell,' Moore said. 'He was just stunned.' One of the contract termination letters viewed by CNN is dated Wednesday, February 25, and signed by Nadeem Shah, a deputy director at USAID. 'This award is being terminated for convenience and the interests of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his capacity as the Acting Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development ['the Agency' or 'USAID'] and/or Peter W. Marocco,' the letter says. 'Immediately cease all activities, terminate all subawards and contracts, and avoid incurring any additional obligations chargeable to the award beyond those unavoidable costs associated with this Termination Notice.' This comes as a Wednesday court filing showed the Trump administration saying it is terminating more than 90% of USAID's foreign aid awards. 'In total, nearly 5,800 USAID awards were terminated, and more than 500 USAID awards were retained,' the filing from the administration said. 'The total ceiling value of the retained awards is approximately $57 billion.' In a new world where USAID is no longer a major funder of RUTF products, Moore wonders whether major nonprofit organizations will step in and help out. 'I can call World Vision, or Save the Children, or whoever, and say, 'Hey, guess what, none of us are going to get this medicine for malnourished kids from the US government anymore, because they're shut down,'' he said. ''Do you want to buy some?''
CNN
27-02-2025
- Business
- CNN
Trump assault on USAID leaves plant that makes peanut butter for malnourished kids scrambling
MANA Nutrition makes a special kind of peanut butter paste that many humanitarian aid workers are familiar with. It is fortified with milk and essential vitamins, packed with calories and sent to severely malnourished children around the world, including some countries in Africa. On Wednesday afternoon, Mark Moore, the CEO and co-founder of the Fitzgerald, Georgia-based plant, got word from the US Agency for International Development: MANA's contracts with the agency were being canceled. CNN spoke with Moore just minutes after he said he received a series of contract termination letters from USAID. Still reeling, Moore described the furious scramble that the news had set off at his plant. One of his first orders of business: Asking his workers mid-production to immediately stop putting labels that say 'USAID' on the pouches that the peanut butter paste is squirted into. 'Every one of those packets has printing on it that says, 'From the American people. USAID.' And if… I don't deliver it through USAID contracts, it's trash. I can't distribute it,' Moore said. 'It's not like I can squeeze that peanut butter back out of that packet and put it in a new packet. So it's a problem. A huge problem.' His predicament is just one of the many aftershocks of the Trump administration's rapid decimation of USAID, which has suffered more severely than almost any other agency across the government. Thousands of positions at the federal agency have been eliminated and the vast majority of its officials have been placed on leave. Contracts are being canceled left and right, leaving many in the humanitarian aid world reeling. In normal times, Moore's plant produces 10 pouches of the lifesaving paste every second. Each small bag contains 500 calories' worth of the special peanut butter — which does not require refrigeration or additional preparation — and is labeled 'RUTF' for 'Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food.' USAID has been a major supporter and funder of RUTF products over the years. In the middle of a phone call with a CNN reporter, Moore asked to switch to FaceTime to show rolls of USAID-emblazoned packaging film in his office that gets turned into the sealed pouches of peanut butter. 'So this is 45 boxes. USAID-branded. This is our UNICEF stuff,' he said, referring to the United Nations agency tasked with providing aid to children worldwide. In their warehouse, Moore said, there are around 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded RUTF ready to be shipped out. He estimates that if USAID doesn't pay MANA for those boxes, he will have at least $10 million in wasted peanut butter pouches on his hands. And that doesn't include an additional $14 million in reimbursements from the federal government that he was already waiting for. He is unsure whether or when he will get paid. Erin Boyd, a USAID nutrition adviser who was laid off from the agency in January, told CNN it is not an overstatement to say that children will die as a result of the decimation of USAID and funding for RUTF. 'Even before this happened, there wasn't enough funding to treat all the children who were presenting wasting.' Boyd said. Wasting, according to UNICEF, refers to a life-threatening form of malnutrition: 'Children with wasting are too thin and their immune systems are weak, leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death,' the group says. And it's not just the production of RUTF that Boyd is alarmed about. She worries that the overhaul of USAID will mean the elimination of countless humanitarian programs around the world designed to save impoverished children. 'It will just mean that kids' programs don't exist; the children don't even get identified as malnourished, and they'll die at home and we won't know,' Boyd said. CNN reached out to the State Department, which now oversees USAID, for comment. For now, Moore is grasping for any clarity — but nobody seems to have any answers. MANA had received around a half-dozen contract termination letters by Wednesday evening. That accounts for 'most of the contracts' that MANA has with USAID, he said, but it was impossible to get anything resembling real guidance from anyone at USAID on how his company should proceed. That's because Trump's assault on the agency has left thousands of positions eliminated and the majority of the agency's employees put on administrative leave. One person placed on leave amid the Trump assault on the agency is the USAID contract officer that Moore has dealt with in the past on MANA's contracts. 'He called me from his personal cell,' Moore said. 'He was just stunned.' One of the contract termination letters viewed by CNN is dated Wednesday, February 25, and signed by Nadeem Shah, a deputy director at USAID. 'This award is being terminated for convenience and the interests of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his capacity as the Acting Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development ['the Agency' or 'USAID'] and/or Peter W. Marocco,' the letter says. 'Immediately cease all activities, terminate all subawards and contracts, and avoid incurring any additional obligations chargeable to the award beyond those unavoidable costs associated with this Termination Notice.' This comes as a Wednesday court filing showed the Trump administration saying it is terminating more than 90% of USAID's foreign aid awards. 'In total, nearly 5,800 USAID awards were terminated, and more than 500 USAID awards were retained,' the filing from the administration said. 'The total ceiling value of the retained awards is approximately $57 billion.' In a new world where USAID is no longer a major funder of RUTF products, Moore wonders whether major nonprofit organizations will step in and help out. 'I can call World Vision, or Save the Children, or whoever, and say, 'Hey, guess what, none of us are going to get this medicine for malnourished kids from the US government anymore, because they're shut down,'' he said. ''Do you want to buy some?''
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump assault on USAID leaves plant that makes peanut butter for malnourished kids scrambling
MANA Nutrition makes a special kind of peanut butter paste that many humanitarian aid workers are familiar with. It is fortified with milk and essential vitamins, packed with calories and sent to severely malnourished children around the world, including some countries in Africa. On Wednesday afternoon, Mark Moore, the CEO and co-founder of the Fitzgerald, Georgia-based plant, got word from the US Agency for International Development: MANA's contracts with the agency were being canceled. CNN spoke with Moore just minutes after he said he received a series of contract termination letters from USAID. Still reeling, Moore described the furious scramble that the news had set off at his plant. One of his first orders of business: Asking his workers mid-production to immediately stop putting labels that say 'USAID' on the pouches that the peanut butter paste is squirted into. 'Every one of those packets has printing on it that says, 'From the American people. USAID.' And if… I don't deliver it through USAID contracts, it's trash. I can't distribute it,' Moore said. 'It's not like I can squeeze that peanut butter back out of that packet and put it in a new packet. So it's a problem. A huge problem.' His predicament is just one of the many aftershocks of the Trump administration's rapid decimation of USAID, which has suffered more severely than almost any other agency across the government. Thousands of positions at the federal agency have been eliminated and the vast majority of its officials have been placed on leave. Contracts are being canceled left and right, leaving many in the humanitarian aid world reeling. In normal times, Moore's plant produces 10 pouches of the lifesaving paste every second. Each small bag contains 500 calories' worth of the special peanut butter — which does not require refrigeration or additional preparation — and is labeled 'RUTF' for 'Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food.' USAID has been a major supporter and funder of RUTF products over the years. In the middle of a phone call with a CNN reporter, Moore asked to switch to FaceTime to show rolls of USAID-emblazoned packaging film in his office that gets turned into the sealed pouches of peanut butter. 'So this is 45 boxes. USAID-branded. This is our UNICEF stuff,' he said, referring to the United Nations agency tasked with providing aid to children worldwide. In their warehouse, Moore said, there are around 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded RUTF ready to be shipped out. He estimates that if USAID doesn't pay MANA for those boxes, he will have at least $10 million in wasted peanut butter pouches on his hands. And that doesn't include an additional $14 million in reimbursements from the federal government that he was already waiting for. He is unsure whether or when he will get paid. Erin Boyd, a USAID nutrition adviser who was laid off from the agency in January, told CNN it is not an overstatement to say that children will die as a result of the decimation of USAID and funding for RUTF. 'Even before this happened, there wasn't enough funding to treat all the children who were presenting wasting.' Boyd said. Wasting, according to UNICEF, refers to a life-threatening form of malnutrition: 'Children with wasting are too thin and their immune systems are weak, leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death,' the group says. And it's not just the production of RUTF that Boyd is alarmed about. She worries that the overhaul of USAID will mean the elimination of countless humanitarian programs around the world designed to save impoverished children. 'It will just mean that kids' programs don't exist; the children don't even get identified as malnourished, and they'll die at home and we won't know,' Boyd said. CNN reached out to the State Department, which now oversees USAID, for comment. For now, Moore is grasping for any clarity — but nobody seems to have any answers. MANA had received around a half-dozen contract termination letters by Wednesday evening. That accounts for 'most of the contracts' that MANA has with USAID, he said, but it was impossible to get anything resembling real guidance from anyone at USAID on how his company should proceed. That's because Trump's assault on the agency has left thousands of positions eliminated and the majority of the agency's employees put on administrative leave. One person placed on leave amid the Trump assault on the agency is the USAID contract officer that Moore has dealt with in the past on MANA's contracts. 'He called me from his personal cell,' Moore said. 'He was just stunned.' One of the contract termination letters viewed by CNN is dated Wednesday, February 25, and signed by Nadeem Shah, a deputy director at USAID. 'This award is being terminated for convenience and the interests of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his capacity as the Acting Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development ['the Agency' or 'USAID'] and/or Peter W. Marocco,' the letter says. 'Immediately cease all activities, terminate all subawards and contracts, and avoid incurring any additional obligations chargeable to the award beyond those unavoidable costs associated with this Termination Notice.' This comes as a Wednesday court filing showed the Trump administration saying it is terminating more than 90% of USAID's foreign aid awards. 'In total, nearly 5,800 USAID awards were terminated, and more than 500 USAID awards were retained,' the filing from the administration said. 'The total ceiling value of the retained awards is approximately $57 billion.' In a new world where USAID is no longer a major funder of RUTF products, Moore wonders whether major nonprofit organizations will step in and help out. 'I can call World Vision, or Save the Children, or whoever, and say, 'Hey, guess what, none of us are going to get this medicine for malnourished kids from the US government anymore, because they're shut down,'' he said. ''Do you want to buy some?''
CNN
27-02-2025
- Business
- CNN
Trump assault on USAID leaves plant that makes peanut butter for malnourished kids scrambling
MANA Nutrition makes a special kind of peanut butter paste that many humanitarian aid workers are familiar with. It is fortified with milk and essential vitamins, packed with calories and sent to severely malnourished children around the world, including some countries in Africa. On Wednesday afternoon, Mark Moore, the CEO and co-founder of the Fitzgerald, Georgia-based plant, got word from the US Agency for International Development: MANA's contracts with the agency were being canceled. CNN spoke with Moore just minutes after he said he received a series of contract termination letters from USAID. Still reeling, Moore described the furious scramble that the news had set off at his plant. One of his first orders of business: Asking his workers mid-production to immediately stop putting labels that say 'USAID' on the pouches that the peanut butter paste is squirted into. 'Every one of those packets has printing on it that says, 'From the American people. USAID.' And if… I don't deliver it through USAID contracts, it's trash. I can't distribute it,' Moore said. 'It's not like I can squeeze that peanut butter back out of that packet and put it in a new packet. So it's a problem. A huge problem.' His predicament is just one of the many aftershocks of the Trump administration's rapid decimation of USAID, which has suffered more severely than almost any other agency across the government. Thousands of positions at the federal agency have been eliminated and the vast majority of its officials have been placed on leave. Contracts are being canceled left and right, leaving many in the humanitarian aid world reeling. In normal times, Moore's plant produces 10 pouches of the lifesaving paste every second. Each small bag contains 500 calories' worth of the special peanut butter — which does not require refrigeration or additional preparation — and is labeled 'RUTF' for 'Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food.' USAID has been a major supporter and funder of RUTF products over the years. In the middle of a phone call with a CNN reporter, Moore asked to switch to FaceTime to show rolls of USAID-emblazoned packaging film in his office that gets turned into the sealed pouches of peanut butter. 'So this is 45 boxes. USAID-branded. This is our UNICEF stuff,' he said, referring to the United Nations agency tasked with providing aid to children worldwide. In their warehouse, Moore said, there are around 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded RUTF ready to be shipped out. He estimates that if USAID doesn't pay MANA for those boxes, he will have at least $10 million in wasted peanut butter pouches on his hands. And that doesn't include an additional $14 million in reimbursements from the federal government that he was already waiting for. He is unsure whether or when he will get paid. Erin Boyd, a USAID nutrition adviser who was laid off from the agency in January, told CNN it is not an overstatement to say that children will die as a result of the decimation of USAID and funding for RUTF. 'Even before this happened, there wasn't enough funding to treat all the children who were presenting wasting.' Boyd said. Wasting, according to UNICEF, refers to a life-threatening form of malnutrition: 'Children with wasting are too thin and their immune systems are weak, leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death,' the group says. And it's not just the production of RUTF that Boyd is alarmed about. She worries that the overhaul of USAID will mean the elimination of countless humanitarian programs around the world designed to save impoverished children. 'It will just mean that kids' programs don't exist; the children don't even get identified as malnourished, and they'll die at home and we won't know,' Boyd said. CNN reached out to the State Department, which now oversees USAID, for comment. For now, Moore is grasping for any clarity — but nobody seems to have any answers. MANA had received around a half-dozen contract termination letters by Wednesday evening. That accounts for 'most of the contracts' that MANA has with USAID, he said, but it was impossible to get anything resembling real guidance from anyone at USAID on how his company should proceed. That's because Trump's assault on the agency has left thousands of positions eliminated and the majority of the agency's employees put on administrative leave. One person placed on leave amid the Trump assault on the agency is the USAID contract officer that Moore has dealt with in the past on MANA's contracts. 'He called me from his personal cell,' Moore said. 'He was just stunned.' One of the contract termination letters viewed by CNN is dated Wednesday, February 25, and signed by Nadeem Shah, a deputy director at USAID. 'This award is being terminated for convenience and the interests of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his capacity as the Acting Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development ['the Agency' or 'USAID'] and/or Peter W. Marocco,' the letter says. 'Immediately cease all activities, terminate all subawards and contracts, and avoid incurring any additional obligations chargeable to the award beyond those unavoidable costs associated with this Termination Notice.' This comes as a Wednesday court filing showed the Trump administration saying it is terminating more than 90% of USAID's foreign aid awards. 'In total, nearly 5,800 USAID awards were terminated, and more than 500 USAID awards were retained,' the filing from the administration said. 'The total ceiling value of the retained awards is approximately $57 billion.' In a new world where USAID is no longer a major funder of RUTF products, Moore wonders whether major nonprofit organizations will step in and help out. 'I can call World Vision, or Save the Children, or whoever, and say, 'Hey, guess what, none of us are going to get this medicine for malnourished kids from the US government anymore, because they're shut down,'' he said. ''Do you want to buy some?''
