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.
This final rule amends the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) regulations by lowering the minimum identified student percentage (ISP) from 40 percent to 25 percent.
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.
This rulemaking proposes to expand access to the Community Eligibility Provision by lowering the minimum identified student percentage participation threshold from 40 percent to 25 percent, which would give states and schools greater flexibility to choose to invest non-federal funds to offer no-cost meals to all enrolled students.
Through this data collection effort, FNS seeks to understand the interrelated factors that lead to household food insecurity. Data will be collected in six counties experiencing persistent intergenerational poverty through a study titled Understanding the Relationship Between Poverty, Well-Being, and Food Security.
FNS will conduct a study to better understand how states determine whether individuals are exempted from work requirements or have good cause for not meeting work requirements due to a physical or mental limitation.
FNS is conducting this study to establish baseline estimates of household food security status in Puerto Rico.
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.
On Oct. 18, 2021, the Food and Nutrition Service revised rules concerning meal pattern tables for the National School Lunch Program and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. The document contained incorrect table entries. This document corrects the final regulations.