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FNS has established the Healthy Meals Incentives (HMI) Initiative to improve the nutritional quality of school meals through food systems transformation, school food authority (SFA) recognition and technical assistance, the generation and sharing of innovative ideas and tested practices, and grants.

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Key Activities

  • HMI Grants for Small and/or Rural SFAs

    FNS and Action for Healthy Kids are working together to award grants to SFAs, reaching students in some of our nation's highest need schools.

    animated salad bowl
  • HMI Recognition Awards for SFAs

    Action for Healthy Kids is offering recognition awards to celebrate SFAs making improvements to the nutritional quality of school meals.

    animated orange and gold award ribbon with a star in the middle
  • School Food System Transformation Challenge Subgrants

    Supporting collaborative projects to stimulate the creation of a resilient, equitable, and nutritious school food system.

    animated yellow school building
  • Healthy Meals Summits

    Offering a space to highlight and share best practices and strategies for sustaining achievements.

    animated group of people (showing just heads and shoulders and no faces)

Cafeteria Chronicles

A sneak peek at our series celebrating school nutrition trailblazers and innovators. Explore stories that shine a spotlight on school districts across the nation that are transforming school meals.

Learn More

The Healthy Meals Incentives activities noted above are expected to increase utilization, and thereby demand, for nutritious agricultural commodities, such as whole grains, vegetables, legumes, and fruits as well as food products that reflect various cultures. These efforts are also positioned to strengthen small and rural school food authorities’ access to nutritious agricultural commodities through food systems transformation and grants to small and rural school food authorities.

The collection and sharing of best practices regarding school food authorities’ use of nutritious agricultural commodities in school meals, as well as the incentivization of practices such as nutrition education (including farm to school nutrition education), use of local agricultural products in scratch cooking, and the development of culturally-diverse school meal menu items is also expected to indirectly benefit producers that supply food products to schools.

Page updated: September 05, 2024