Feeding Our Future update: Partners in Nutrition appeal scheduled for February 1

Free-food nonprofit is seeking reinstatement to program.

Most of the attention in Minnesota’s free-food scandal has fallen on the now-defunct nonprofit Feeding Our Future.

The second-largest nonprofit in the free-food universe is seeking reinstatement, after the state Department of Education (MDE) suspended Partners in Nutrition, d/b/a/ Partners in Quality Care, immediately after the Feeding Our Future FBI raids in January. Over its six-year existence, Partners in Nutrition has taken $215 million out of the program.

MDE’s action came even though the St. Paul-based Partners in Nutrition was not the subject of any FBI searches. In fact, no Partners employee has been indicted in the case.

However, one Partners board member is mentioned in FBI documents. MDE has included information from the Feeding Our Future case in the Partners appeal, including information about vendors working with Partners, who have been indicted.

A hearing before the state Court of Appeals has been scheduled for February 1, 2023. Partners had requested that information from the Feeding Our Future indictments be excluded from Partners’ case and that Partners be awarded attorney fees. Both requests have been denied by the courts.