Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins writes to remind schools, sponsors, and institutions participating in any USDA Child Nutrition Program, including the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, Special Milk Program for Children, Child and Adult Care Food Program, Summer Food Service Program, and the Seamless Summer Option, of the many ways they can purchase local foods to serve in program meals.

The purpose of this memorandum is to remind schools, sponsors, and institutions participating in any U.S. Department of Agriculture Child Nutrition Program, including the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, Special Milk Program for Children, Child and Adult Care Food Program, Summer Food Service Program, and the Seamless Summer Option, of the various resources available to help child nutrition program operators procure local foods. 

This memorandum provides guidance on the school year 2026-2027 Buy American accommodation process outlined in 7 CFR 210.21(d)(8) and 7 CFR 220.16(d)(8). 

This memorandum provides notice to child nutrition program operators regarding the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 (the 2025 Appropriations Act), March 15, 2025. This applies to state agencies administering, and local organizations operating, the USDA FNS child nutrition programs.

The purpose of this memorandum is to remind schools, sponsors, and institutions participating in any USDA Child Nutrition Program, including the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, Special Milk Program for Children , Child and Adult Care Food Program, Summer Food Service Program, and the Seamless Summer Option , of the many ways they can purchase local foods to serve in program meals.

This memorandum provides guidance on the Buy American accommodation process. This memorandum provides the state agency the ability to approve temporary relief for school food authorities that demonstrate they cannot meet the thresholds for non-domestic food purchases for school year 2025-26.

This memorandum provides a detailed explanation of the expanded geographic preference option. 

Recently, FNA has received a number of questions related to buying local meat, poultry, game, and eggs; this memorandum seeks to clarify the regulatory requirements related to food safety and answer specific questions related to these products with a series of questions and answers.

This general USDA Foods guidance explains that the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service will discontinue the requirement for vendors to use high security seals to secure USDA Foods deliveries as of July 1, 2023. 

FNS advances food safety education and practices in federal nutrition assistance programs through research conducted by the Center for Food Safety in Child Nutrition Programs (the Center). To better understand food safety concerns associated with fresh produce and farm to school activities, the Center conducted a study.