WIC: Food Package

No, you do not need to call your local WIC office to update your food package.

At your next visit, WIC staff will work with you to update your food package to meet your dietary preferences and needs. If you have any questions, contact your local WIC clinic.

The law requires USDA to review the WIC food packages every 10 years to make sure they reflect the latest nutrition science, health concerns, and cultural food choices.

USDA is committed to ensuring current nutrition science informs federal nutrition program standards, and updating the WIC food packages is a key part of that effort.

The changes provide individualized food benefits for breastfeeding participants by:

• Providing important nutrients that breastfeeding individuals need by offering fish, more fruits and vegetables, and more whole grains.
• Supporting individual breastfeeding goals with supplemental feeding flexibility for partially breastfed babies.

The changes give WIC participants more flexibility, variety, and choices. They build on current options for cultural and personal preferences while ensuring WIC foods provide key nutrients. These changes include:

• More whole grain choices, to meet different tastes and wheat allergies.
• Lowers the age at which parents and caregivers can substitute jarred infant fruits and vegetables with a dollar amount to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from nine months to six months.
• Changes to support clients with cultural or personal preferences, limited cooking space, or special dietary needs such as food allergies or intolerances.

By law, WIC is designed to supplement diets and provide nutrients for healthy growth and development. It fills in nutritional gaps based on what participants already eat.

Research shows that child and adult participants are already getting enough juice in their diet, and the amounts in the old food packages were more than the recommended daily limit.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend eating more whole fruits and vegetables, especially for young children, to help increase their fiber intake. To align with these recommendations, Wisconsin WIC replaced the juice benefit with an additional $3 fruits and vegetables benefit. Participants can substitute juice for the additional $3 fruits and vegetable benefit upon request.

By law, WIC is designed to supplement diets and provide nutrients for healthy growth and development. It fills in nutritional gaps based on what participants already eat.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend eating enough foods and beverages to meet nutrient needs without going over calorie limits. Before the changes, the WIC food packages provided 4-6 gallons of milk per month, which was up to 128% of the daily recommended amount of dairy.

To make WIC’s food packages more balanced, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommended reducing the milk amount. USDA adopted this recommendation, reducing milk to 3-4 gallons per month, which is 71-96% of the daily recommended amount of dairy. This change still supports milk consumption and provides important nutrients like calcium and vitamin D.

The final changes add 6 ounces of fish in cans or pouches to food packages for children (ages 1-4), which aligns with recommendations that children should eat 1-1.7 ounces of low mercury fish per day.

The final changes also add 10 ounces of fish in cans or pouches to food packages for pregnant and postpartum clients, and 15 ounces for partially breastfeeding clients. The amount for fully breastfeeding clients has been adjusted from 30 to 20 ounces.