Kaine discusses tariffs, SNAP cuts at visit to Warren County frozen food plant

FRONT ROYAL -- U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., toured a frozen fruit producer in Warren County on Wednesday where he raised concerns about tariffs, food costs and SNAP cuts.

Kaine stopped at Nature’s Touch Frozen Foods where he talked with company leadership about the products and the producer’s role in providing healthier food to consumers. Kaine also promoted the Supporting all Healthy Options when Purchasing Produce Act, or SHOPP, which seeks to amend the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program that provides grants for projects that provide incentives for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants to purchase fruits and vegetables. The bill also amends the GusNIP Produce Prescription Program to include fresh frozen fruits and vegetables, as well as fresh and fresh frozen legumes. Currently, only fresh fruits and vegetables are covered under the program.

Nature’s Touch, based in Quebec, Canada, opened a frozen food manufacturing facility on U.S. 340-522 north of Front Royal approximately two years ago. Company founder and Chief Executive Officer John Tentomas and Senior Sustainability Manager Danielle Reid and other staff presented information to the senator. Donna Garren, executive vice president of the American Frozen Food Institute, also weighed in on the benefits and the push for the products.

Tentomas explained to Kaine the benefits of frozen versus fresh fruit, which include retention of nutrients and less waste. Kaine noted that fresh fruit often is seen as better than frozen.

Staff then took Kaine on a tour of the processing and warehousing facility.

Kaine, speaking to the media after a tour of the facility, voiced his concerns about federal spending cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, which provides food benefits to low-income families. Kaine said he and other Democrats, in their ongoing discussions about budget appropriations, are trying to figure ways to restore the SNAP funding.

“It’s interesting that just back-to-back I was talking to folks about SNAP cuts, but then I’m here at Nature’s Touch, which is, you know, the largest distributor of frozen fruit in the United States; it’s an international operation, we’re so proud to have them invested in Virginia."

"But, in SNAP, the way SNAP treats fresh food, frozen food has been at a little bit of a disadvantage even though it’s nutritionally equal or sometimes better and it’s less likely to waste and often from a cost standpoint, particularly on items that are out of season, frozen food is really, really a value."

“So it was interesting to tour here — you know, we love the investment in Virginia — but also to talk about ways, at the federal level, where we can put frozen food kind of on an equal playing field,” Kaine said. “A lot of markets that you might go into that sell food don’t have a produce section but they do have a freezer, so if you can put great food in the freezer that people can buy year-round, you’re going to help them eat healthier.”

The most recent inflation report shows President Donald Trump's tariffs are pushing up prices, Kaine said. Americans tend to shop during different seasons -- back-to-school, Thanksgiving and holidays, Kaine said. Shopping seasons will look different this year, Kaine said.

“(Tariffs) can be a good thing when you have a really vigorous domestic production capacity and maybe another nation is putting trade barriers in your way, not letting you export there -- tariffs are justified there,” Kaine said. “But what about products we don’t produce in America? You could put a tariff as much as you want to on coffee from another nation but we’re not gonna start growing a lot of coffee in the United States because it’s not where coffee is grown.

“Similarly, when it comes to fruit or vegetable products, we have domestic production capacity in some areas but there are some products that just aren’t grown here,” Kaine said. “The right answer: not a broad brush but specific and targeted and narrow rather than just everything from these dozens of countries are gonna absorb a big tariff because, of course, they don’t absorb the tariff. It’s like a sales tax on the American consumers at a time when they’re already paying too much.”

Before touring Nature's Touch, Kaine held a roundtable discussion in Winchester with 16 representatives from nonprofit agencies across the region on the Our Health campus on North Cameron Street.