FNS Documents & Resources

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.

Updated School Meal Standards: working towards a common goal of healthy children and helping them reach their full potential.

School meals will continue to include fruits and vegetables, emphasize whole grains, and give kids the right balance of nutrients for healthy, tasty meals. For the first time, schools will focus on products with less added sugar, especially in school breakfast.

School nutrition professionals continue to make school meals the healthiest meals children eat in a day! To take school meals to the next level, USDA is updating the school nutrition standards after considering recommendations from the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans and listening to a diverse range of voices with experience in child nutrition and health.

This rulemaking proposes important modifications to make the application of serious deficiency procedures in the Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program consistent, effective, and in line with current requirements under the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. 

FNS hosted a webinar to provide state agencies and food banks with information about how TEFAP can support cultural and religious practices around food, particularly those serving kosher and halal observant communities. The webinar featured panelists from state agencies and food banks who have successfully implemented processes to serve these specific communities.

FNS is proposing to amend its regulations to make access and parity improvements within several food distribution programs, including the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, The Emergency Food Assistance Program, and USDA Foods disaster response. The proposed provisions use plain language to make them easier to read and understand.

This memorandum provides best practices for establishing a single application process for experienced program operators providing year-round meal services to at-risk children in low-income areas.

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 webinar provides an overview of USDA child nutrition programs’ final rule, Streamlining Program Requirements and Improving Integrity in the Summer Food Service Program.