USDA offers prototypes of school meal applications, as well as sample instructional documents intended to assist state and local officials in the design and distribution of their own application materials.
This factsheet reviews best practices for producers to learn about how to sell local food to schools.
The USDA awards grants annually to help connect students to the sources of their food through education, taste tests, school gardens, field trips, and local food sourcing for school meals. This fact sheet gives an overview of the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant Program and highlights Farm to School grantee projects.
This fact sheet, available in both English and Spanish, reviews the steps to successfully integrate local food in child nutrition programs.
This factsheet gives examples, tips, and information for putting local meat on school menus.
This factsheet explains how USDA Foods support the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the school meal pattern requirements to make it easier for schools to prepare healthy meals using local foods.
This fact sheet provides information on how to use USDA DoD Fresh to purchase local produce.
See what foods are available for your menus next school year!
State agencies are encouraged to use this as a guidance when planning information systems.
The Food Buying Guide for child nutrition programs has all of the current information in one manual to help you and your purchasing agent buy the right amount of food and the appropriate type of food for your program(s), and determine the specific contribution each food makes toward the meal pattern requirements.