The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program aims to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among students in the nation’s poorest elementary schools by providing free fresh fruits and vegetables to students outside of regular school meals. The results presented in this interim report, for the 2010-2011 school year, focus on the total quantity of fruits and vegetables consumed and total energy intake (also referred to as total caloric intake), allowing the assessment of whether any additional fruit and vegetable consumption was in addition to or in place of other foods consumed.

To manage the Child Nutrition programs effectively, FNS collects and analyzes information from annual State-level management reports. However, because these State-level reports vary considerably in both format and content, FNS is unable to rely on this source for all of its ongoing information needs.

The study collected data on-site on food, labor, and other meal production costs for a five day period. A major goal was to test the feasibility of identifying meal production costs that were not charged to the SFA account (to obtain full costs) and directly allocating costs to different SFA activities.