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.
Healthy school meals are a critical part of the school environment – like teachers, classrooms, books, and computers – and set kids up for success. These resources can help school breakfast program operators plan nutritious meals that can help improve a child’s health, growth, development, and educational outcomes.
This proposed rule would update the method for calculating the Thrifty Food Plan cost adjustment for Hawaii to incorporate food prices from throughout the state of Hawaii rather than from Honolulu alone.
This training guide for school nutrition professionals presents how to identify sources of added sugars and ways to reduce added sugars in school breakfast meals.
Schools that have access to local, fresh produce and who wish to take advantage of low prices during abundant supply and peak nutrition may want to consider vacuum sealing in-house processed and frozen fruits and vegetables.
A resource on preserving locally harvested produce in school meals includes information about facility and personnel considerations and product flow and handling.
Learn how to properly store produce in a walk-in refrigerator.
Little is known about the food safety risks associated with the various production methods by which schools prepare and serve food to students. Given this, the Center for Food Safety in Child Nutrition Programs at Kansas State University conducted a study.
The Community Eligibility Provision is a National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program meal service option that allows schools and school districts located in high poverty areas to offer breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students.
The purpose of this memorandum is to update prior guidance to reflect changes made to the Community Eligibility Provision due to the Final Rule, Child Nutrition Programs: Community Eligibility Provision – Increasing Options for Schools (FR 65778), effective on Oct. 26, 2023. This final rule amended CEP regulations by lowering the minimum identified student percentage to elect CEP from 40 percent to 25 percent.