U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced major steps to promote the health of American children through school meals. The nutrition standards for school meals will be gradually updated to provide less sugar and more flexibility in menu planning between fall 2025 and fall 2027. The department arrived at these changes after listening carefully to public feedback and taking into account the latest scientific recommendations from the dietary guidelines. for Americans. The new rule continues the Biden-Harris administration’s work to address both food and nutrition security.
Primary and secondary schools serve a nutritious breakfast and lunch to nearly 30 million children every school day. These meals are the main source of nutrition for more than half of these children and help improve children’s health.
“We all share the goal of helping children reach their full potential,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. “Like teachers, classrooms, books and computers, nutritious school meals are an essential part of the school environment, and raising the bar on school meals will enable our children to achieve greater success inside and outside the classroom. Building on this important milestone, the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to work with schools, districts, states and industry to build on the extraordinary progress made in strengthening school meals.”
The final rule being discussed today is an important step toward advancing the Administration’s national strategy to end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases by 2030, as outlined during the historic White House Conference on Hunger , nutrition and health in September 2022.
“The new standards build on the great progress that school meals have already made and address remaining challenges – including reducing sugar in school breakfasts. These updates also make it easier for schools to access locally produced products, which benefits both the schools and the local economy,” said Cindy Long, USDA Food and Nutrition Service Administrator.
Key updates to the nutrition standards to support healthy children include:
Added sugars
- For the first time, added sugars in school meals will be restricted nationwide, with minor changes in fall 2025 and full implementation in fall 2027. USDA heard concerns from parents and teachers about excessive amounts of added sugars in some foods, which includes played a role. new limit. Research shows that these added sugars are most commonly found in typical school breakfast foods. Child care providers will also begin limiting added sugars in breakfast cereals and yogurts, rather than total sugars, in the fall of 2025.
Milk
- Schools can continue to offer flavored and unflavored milk, which provides essential nutrients children need, such as calcium, vitamin D and potassium. By fall 2025, there will be a new limit on added sugars in flavored milk served at breakfast and lunch. Thirty-seven school milk processors – representing more than 90% of school milk volume nationwide – have already committed to offering nutritious school milk options that meet this added sugar limit.
Sodium
- Schools will have to slightly reduce the sodium content of their meals by fall 2027. In response to public comments, USDA is requiring only one sodium reduction, not the three incremental reductions proposed last year. This change continues to move our children in the right direction and gives schools and industry the time they need to prepare. The sodium limits in this final rule will be familiar to schools as they were supported by leading school food and industry stakeholders during previous rulemaking activities in 2017 and 2018.
Whole grain
- Current dietary standards for whole grains will not change. Schools will continue to offer students a variety of nutrient-dense whole grains and have the option to offer fortified grains to meet students’ cultural and taste preferences.
Support other food preferences
- While this is not a new requirement, starting fall 2024 it will be easier for schools to serve high-protein breakfast foods such as yogurt, tofu, eggs, nuts and seeds, which can help reduce sugary food options while also supporting vegetarian diets and other food preferences .
Support local food purchases
- Also beginning in fall 2024, schools will have the option to require that unprocessed agricultural products are grown, raised or caught locally when purchasing for school meal programs, making it easier for schools to purchase local food.
- Additionally, beginning in Fall 2025, schools will have limits on the percentage of non-domestically grown and produced food they can purchase, expanding the role of American farmers, producers, fishermen and ranchers in providing nutritious food to schools.
For more information on how school meals will be strengthened, see these resources:
What remains the same
School meals will continue to emphasize fruit and vegetables; whole grain; and give children the right balance of many nutrients for healthy, tasty meals. School nutrition professionals are local experts in their communities and will continue to serve meals their students want to eat, while also prioritizing cultural and religious food preferences.
Nutritious school meals are invaluable to everyday families
- “Free breakfast lunches that my grandchildren eat at school are a huge relief,” says MomsRising member Mary Beth Cochran, a disabled homemaker raising four grandchildren in Canton, North Carolina. “Honestly, I don’t know what we would do without school meals. It gives me so much peace of mind to know that no matter what the children do, they will eat two balanced meals at school five days a week. So I’m thrilled that the USDA is taking action to raise nutrition standards for school meals. As a grandmother, I will move mountains to ensure my grandchildren get the healthy food they need to learn and grow. I am proud to support this rule because I know it will make a real difference to the health and well-being of families like mine.”
School districts are able to meet the updated standards
The announcement comes just weeks after the Spring 2024 Heathy Meals Summit in St. Louis, Missouri, where hundreds of school nutrition professionals gathered to celebrate and share their innovative efforts to improve the nutritional quality of school meals. As part of USDA’s Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative, 264 small and rural school districts each received up to $150,000 to equip them with the tools to improve their meal service operations and help them meet these updated nutrition standards.
Through the School Food System Transformation Challenge Grants, the initiative also supports innovation in the school meals market by increasing collaboration between schools, food manufacturers and suppliers and other partners.
The food industry is answering the call to produce nutritious school food
- “Before the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, my company JTM Food Group began reformulating our K 12 product offerings to reduce sodium content. During COVID, we have continued our R&D efforts in revising formulations, especially in our cheese and items, to further reduce sodium content in anticipation of the new meal pattern,” said Carole Erb, JTM Executive Director of Education and Governmental Sales. “JTM team members have worked together to bring reduced sodium products to market that will meet today’s new meal patterns. We are ready to continue supporting all foodservice directors across the country and the important work they and their staff do, feeding America’s children and feeding the nation.”
- “As a mother and industry colleague, I think it is important to reduce the sugar content in school meals. To help schools, we’ve created a sample menu showing how our products meet the updated standards. We have also reduced added sugars by using high-quality natural ingredients that ensure our baked goods are healthy and delicious,” said Laura Trujillo Bruno, RDN, SNS, president of Buena Vista Foods.
More support from a school nutrition professional
- “The nutrition standards provide us with a framework to build upon and help us know that the meals we serve are nutritious for our students. The standards help us create equality and a healthy portfolio by ensuring that all children at school receive healthy meals. And in fact, we know that school cafeterias are the healthiest places Americans eat,” said Anneliese Tanner, Boston Public Schools executive director of food and nutrition. “We are already moving in this direction in Boston Public Schools. We use the same limits on added sugars and reduce sodium in our menus, and we have done so for many years. Complying with the new regulations is therefore perfectly possible. There is still a long implementation path for others to also move in this direction.”
***Courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture***