Food Away From Home (FAFH) Establishment Data and Information

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Economic Research Service (ERS), in Washington, DC, intends to negotiate on a sole source basis a contract with the NPD Group, Inc., 900 W SHORE RD, PORT WASHINGTON, NY, 11050-4624, for Food Away From Home (FAFH) Establishment Data and Information. ERS requires individual outlet-level data on commercial FAFH establishments' characteristics and location, including (but not limited to) business name, address, location (longitude-latitude, state, county, and census tract), market area identifiers, annual sales, full-time equivalent employees, segment, menu category, and open and close (if applicable) dates. The requested data, information, and documentation shall cover the following time periods: 2015 (as of September), 2016, 2017, and, if possible, 2018 (as of March). Researchers must be able to use the data to create annual snapshots of the number and composition of FAFH establishments. The requested data, information, and documentation shall be for the months of March and September in each year. Each year of the required data, information, and documentation (on data sources, collection procedures, estimation methods, data dictionary, variable dictionary, data quality, and limitations) shall be submitted as a separate set. Data and information for each year shall be fully compatible, consistent, and integrate-able with data and information for any other year, particularly with respect to the geographic identifiers. The structure of data collection shall ensure that the coverage of FAFH establishments is universal or as close to universal as possible. The geographical coverage of FAFH establishments shall include every US County with operating establishments, including rural counties per USDA-ERS rural classifications. Data collection may include a diverse array of sources including but not limited to commercial business registers (e.g., InfoUSA), industry literature, in-person visits, direct contact (e.g., phone and/or email) and internet searches. The circumstance permitting other than full and open competition is FAR 13.106-1, the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available. This requirement is a follow-on effort to Delivery/Task Order: AG-32SB-C-12-0009/AG-32SB-D-15-0339 for the continued development of research. The award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition, specifically the ERS Internal Activity "Food Retail Data Validation Project." Ongoing work at ERS aims to validate and produce a comprehensive view of the United States' food environment that incorporates multiple co-dependent sources of data available. These data include NPD ReCount support of a significant number of ongoing research activities. ERS has invested a significant amount of personnel resources into this work, including four ERS staff members and an intern. Much of this work accommodates unique attributes of NPD ReCount data. Replicating this work is estimated to require on average 150 hours per ERS staff member and 1000 hours for the intern). Also, one ERS staff member has already engaged in a significant amount of internal data validation and preparation to interface with commonly used statistical software. This effort took an estimated 500 hours. In addition to these direct costs, several ongoing efforts utilizing the results of the project would need to duplicate already completed efforts, including co-operative agreement #58-4000-7-0084. Anticipated Date of Award: 07/16/2018 THIS NOTICE OF INTENT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. This notice is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government. Vendors that believe they can provide the services listed above are invited to submit substantiating documentation in writing to the identified point of contact. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. A determination by the Government to compete this proposed contract based on responses to this notice is solely at the discretion of the Government.