FNS Documents & Resources

A number of tools and resources are available to help schools identify food items that meet Smart Snacks criteria. See the resources below for information about the Smart Snacks requirement, helpful tools, and ways to encourage children to make healthier snack choices that give them the nutrition they need to grow and learn.

This memorandum addresses inventory limitations and requirements that USDA Foods processors must follow when manufacturing processed end products for use in child nutrition programs.

Kids eat more fruits and vegetables, when more fruits and vegetables are offered. A recent Harvard study reported that, under the updated standards for school meals, kids are now eating 16 percent more vegetables and 23 percent more fruit at lunch. During School Year 2014-2015, schools will start to offer more fruits at breakfast. Find information below on how your school can meet meal pattern requirements in ways that boost student acceptance of fruit and vegetable offerings.

Schools are an important player in overall national efforts to reduce the amount of salt that people eat. As such, schools participating in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs will continue to reduce the amount of salt in meals by choosing lower sodium versions of foods and flavoring foods with spices and herbs. See the resources below for information about sodium limits in school meals and guidance on selecting and preparing foods with less sodium.

In order to update and streamline policy guidance for the USDA Foods Processing Program, FNS is cancelling policy memoranda FD-009, FD-025, FD-130, FD-102, FD-030, FD-038, FD-048, FD-103, and FD-108. The guidance provided by these memoranda is outdated and has been superseded by the Final Rule: Revisions and Clarifications in Requirements for the Processing of Donated Foods, which was published on May 1, 2018.