The U.S. Department of Agriculture is asking states and food service companies, with the support of school food authorities, to pledge to make school meals and snack programs healthier.
Product Formulation Statement templates and samples for demonstrating how a food product may contribute to the meal pattern requirements in USDA child nutrition programs.
This memorandum provides information and guidance related to implementing the updated fluid milk options available to operators of the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Food Program, and the Special Milk Program for Children.
This final rule with comment period expands fluid milk options by allowing schools and child and adult care providers participating in child nutrition programs to offer whole and reduced-fat milk to participants two years and older.
Effective July 1, 2025 (school year 2025-26), school nutrition standards include a limit on the amount of added sugars allowed in breakfast cereals, flavored milk, and yogurt served in the NSLP and SBP, and for flavored milk sold as competitive foods known as Smart Snacks in School.
We have studied school meal program operations for a long time. You can access published reports that go back to school year 1988-89. Each study in this series focuses on topics that are important to program operations at the time. Sometimes the studies also collect information about other child nutrition programs, like the Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program.
We regularly collect information about the school meal programs and how they operate from the people who know best – the state agencies that oversee the programs in each state and territory and the school food authorities that manage the programs locally in one or more schools.
In this program guidance, Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke L. Rollins, strongly encourages child nutrition program operators to familiarize themselves with the key recommendations and consider how the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030 can be incorporated into program meals and snacks to promote healthy outcomes and healthy families.
The studies encompassed under this information collection will collect data from school food authorities administering the child nutrition programs, including information on emerging and ongoing challenges, their impacts on operations and student participation, and strategies SFAs are undertaking to address challenges they face.
As a reminder, meals and snacks offered through the child nutrition programs may be claimed for federal reimbursement if they meet the federal nutrition requirements and other federal regulations. State agencies may not withhold federal reimbursement for meals that meet the federal requirements, even if additional state requirements are not met. However, if a state provides an additional reimbursement above the federal reimbursement, they may withhold the state reimbursement.