FNS Documents & Resources

On April 25, 2024, FNS published the final rule, Child Nutrition Programs: Meal Patterns Consistent With the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This rule includes minor updates to the Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program to better align Child Nutrition Program requirements. These updates represent continued progress toward supporting the nutrition quality of school meals, strengthening the Child Nutrition Programs, and advancing USDA’s commitment to nutrition security. 

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.

Guidance, resources, best practices, and training for CACFP operators to support them in providing healthy, balanced meals and snacks to the children and adults they serve.

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. 

This memorandum provides guidance to state distributing agencies and recipient agencies on the use of market basket analysis in procuring processed end products for USDA Foods in Schools and commercial goods for the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Summer Food Service Program, and Child and Adult Care Food Program. 

This rule proposes to revise and clarify requirements for the processing of donated foods in order to: Incorporate successful processing options tested in demonstration projects, ensure accountability for donated foods provided for processing, and increase program efficiency.

The purpose of this policy memorandum is to clarify the options available to state distributing agencies or recipient agencies in assigning value to USDA donated foods for audit purposes.

This study will collect a broad range of data from a nationally representative sample of sponsors, directors, food preparers and/or provider staff of childcare centers, family day care home and after-school programs that participate in CACFP and those that do not participate in the program, and from the children and parents of children receiving care from CACFP childcare centers, family day care homes, and after-school programs during 2015-2016. 

Effective Oct.1, 2008, institutions receiving funds through the child nutrition programs may apply an optional geographic preference in the procurement of unprocessed locally grown or locally raised agricultural products.

This document informs the public about a change in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans that affects the proposed rule "Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs'' issued by the Department of Agriculture and published in the Federal Register on Jan. 13, 2011.