This rulemaking finalizes long-term school nutrition requirements based on the goals of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, robust stakeholder input, and lessons learned from prior rulemakings.
The final rule - Child Nutrition Programs: Revisions to Meal Patterns Consistent with the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans - is the next step in an ongoing effort toward healthier school meals that USDA and the broader school meals community have been partnering on for well over a decade. This table is a reference tool for stakeholders to visualize the proposed implementation timeline.
Check out this database to access vendor-specific product information for all direct delivered USDA Foods for the National School Lunch Program.
USDA is extending the public comment period on the proposed rule, “Child Nutrition Programs: Revisions to Meal Patterns Consistent With the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” to May 10, 2023.
This rulemaking proposes long-term school nutrition standards based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, and feedback the USDA received from child nutrition program stakeholders during a robust stakeholder engagement campaign.
Now available in Spanish. Content from the Feeding Infants in the Child Adult Care Food Program guide is brought to life in these in-person training resources.
Ahora disponible en español. El contenido de la Herramientas para el instructor del CACFP: Alimentación para Bebés cobra vida en estos recursos de capacitación en persona.
Meal pattern chart for the School Breakfast Program
Meal pattern chart for the National School Lunch Program
This final rule will establish transitional standards to support the continued provision of nutritious school meals as schools respond to and recover from the pandemic and while USDA engages in notice-and-comment rulemaking to update the meal pattern standards to more comprehensively reflect the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.