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Gradual implementation of nutrition updates, to include less sugar, set to begin in Fall 2025
WASHINGTON, April 24, 2024 – Today, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced major steps to promote the health of America’s children through school meals. Nutrition standards for school meals will be gradually updated to include less sugar and flexibility with menu planning between Fall 2025 and Fall 2027. The Department arrived at these changes after listening closely to public feedback and considering the latest science-based recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The new rule continues the work of the Biden-Harris Administration to address both food and nutrition security.
K-12 schools serve nutritious breakfasts and lunches to nearly 30 million children every school day. These meals are the main source of nutrition for more than half of these children and help improve child health.
“We all share the goal of helping children reach their full potential,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Like teachers, classrooms, books, and computers, nutritious school meals are an essential part of the school environment, and when we raise the bar for school meals, it empowers our kids to achieve greater success inside and outside of the classroom. Expanding on this major milestone, the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to partner with schools, districts, states and industry to build on the extraordinary progress made to strengthen school meals.”
The final rule previewed today, is a significant step toward advancing the Administration’s national strategy to end hunger and reduce diet-related disease by 2030 set forth at the historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in September 2022.
“The new standards build on the great progress that school meals have made already and address remaining challenges - including reducing sugar in school breakfasts. These updates also make it easier for schools to access locally sourced products, benefiting both schools and the local economy,” said USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service Administrator Cindy Long.
Key updates to the nutrition standards to support healthy kids include:
Added Sugars
Milk
Sodium
Whole Grains
Supporting Other Food Preferences
Supporting Local Food Purchases
Additionally, starting in Fall 2025, schools will have limits on the percentage of non-domestic grown and produced foods they can purchase, which will enhance the role of American farmers, producers, fishers, and ranchers in providing nutritious foods to schools.
For more information about how school meals will be strengthened, see these resources:
What’s Staying the Same
School meals will continue to emphasize fruits and vegetables; whole grains; and give kids the right balance of many nutrients for healthy, tasty meals. School nutrition professionals are local experts in their communities and will continue serving meals that their students want to eat, while also prioritizing cultural and religious food preferences.
Nutritious School Meals Are Invaluable to Everyday Families
School Districts Empowered to Meet Updated Standards
Today’s announcement comes a few weeks after the Spring 2024 Heathy Meals Summit in St. Louis, Mo., where hundreds of school nutrition professionals gathered to celebrate and share their innovative efforts to enhance the nutritional quality of school meals. As part of USDA’s Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative, 264 small and rural school districts each received up to $150,000 to equip them with the resources to improve their meal service operations and help them meet these updated nutrition standards.
Through the School Food System Transformation Challenge Grants, the initiative is also supporting innovation in the school meals market by increasing collaboration between schools, food producers and suppliers, and other partners.
Food Industry is Answering the Call to Produce Nutritious School Foods
More Support from a School Nutrition Professional
By law, USDA is required to set standards for the foods and beverages served through the school meal programs that align with the goals of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Each school develops meals that fit within these standards and reflect tastes and preferences of the students they serve.
The Department proposed updates to the standards in February 2023 and received tremendous feedback during the 90-day public comment period that resulted in more than 136,000 total public comments. These comments were considered in the development of the finalized nutrition standards. Leading up to the proposed standards, USDA held more than 50 listening sessions with state agencies, school districts, advocacy organizations, tribal stakeholders, professional associations, food manufacturers and other federal agencies.
The Biden-Harris Administration and USDA are dedicated to supporting the school nutrition programs. While schools bounced back from the pandemic, the Department provided them more purchasing power to buy American foods and opportunities for enhanced grant programs for updating equipment, product innovation, staff training and farm to school efforts that serve the needs of their local school districts.
To learn about more ways USDA is investing in school meal programs, see the Support for Schools webpage.
USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe and healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate-smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean-energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.