This second annual report of the WIC and FMNP Modernization Evaluation provides an overview of modernization efforts underway and highlights early implementation findings, covering activities through December 2025.
These briefs share the findings from the USDA School Food Preparation Study.
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.
This request for approval of information collection is necessary to obtain input into the development of nutrition education interventions for population groups served by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Administration. FNA also uses this collection to obtain input that can be used to develop and assess grants.
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.
SNACS-II studied child care providers who participate in the Child and Adult Care Food Program. This study found that these providers serve healthy meals and snacks to the children in their care. Children have better overall diets on days when they are in child care than on days when they are not.
Under the leadership of Secretary Brooke Rollins, USDA is prioritizing the clarification of statutory, regulatory, and administrative requirements of the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program.
We periodically examine SNAP benefit redemption patterns related to the timing, number, and dollar amount of transactions and the rate at which households spend down and exhaust their monthly benefits. These studies also report on the number of transactions made and the share of benefits redeemed at various types of stores.
The WIC and FMNP Modernization Evaluation provides a comprehensive look at how we are working with WIC state agencies, local agencies, and other partners to modernize WIC and the Farmers' Market Nutrition Program.