Ignore Excluded Foods and Expired CN Labels During Claims Check

The "Ignore Excluded Foods and Expired CN Labels During Claims Check" is a checkbox in sponsor setup. It allows meals to be claimed even if they are on the sponsor Excluded Foods list and even if the CN label has been expired for more than 1 year. It is a quick, sponsor-wide way to remove the error, "Food item is not creditable."

Some sites have certain foods that are excluded from being included on menus. For example, if your state agency does not allow the breading on chicken nuggets to be counted toward the grain/bread component, centers and providers can be prevented from adding them to their menus.

Foods with a CN Label number also have an expiration date based on the USDA CN Label Verification Report. CN-labeled items remain valid in our database for one year after the CN label expires to accommodate sites that purchase the product when the CN label was current but do not serve the item until a later date. Any sponsor or site that wants to know when the CN labeled products they serve are expiring can run a report called Foods Served with CN Labels or Product Formulation Statement. 

• If a sponsor would like to manually remove an item with an expired CN label before one year when it is removed from the My Food Program database, then they can do that by making that item an Excluded Food.
• If a sponsor wants to allow a food item with a CN label more than one year expired, they can either do a manual claim adjustment for each center or check the box in Sponsor Setup that says "Ignore Excluded Foods and Expired CN Labels During Claims Check". Note that there will be a warning message on the menu planning page, even though the meal is not disallowed.