The allocation of funds with the express purpose of promoting “excellent meals” in schools.
Reduce food waste by encouraging more students to eat their school lunches.
On Thursday, the USDA unveiled a $50 million grant program for the food industry to support efforts to enhance the healthfulness and general quality of school lunches.
Providing “collaboration with the food sector to offer nutritious, enticing school meals for students,” as the USDA put it, was the stated goal of the funding.
The USDA states that the grants “will increase schools’ capacity to acquire a wider choice of healthy, appealing items and stimulate innovation by food producers and suppliers,” which includes local farmers and small and disadvantaged businesses.
Nearly 5 billion meals were provided by the National School Lunch Program in 2019, at a cost to the USDA of nearly $14 billion. However, the USDA has been worried about school lunch waste for years, and they recognize that pushing children to eat everything on their trays is a significant contributor to this issue.
The USDA suggests keeping track of how much of each meal a student actually eats in order to cut down on food waste. This calls for “extensive planning on the part of school nutrition professionals, student input into decision-making, and training on the negative effects of food waste” on the side of educators.
This week’s award suggests that one option is to improve the quality of school lunches. In order to “help and expand the food supply chain for K-12 schools,” the USDA will award grants to up to four non-profits.
School districts, food producers, distributors, wholesalers, and other organizations that “increase schools’ capacity to access a wider variety of healthy, appealing foods and drive innovation by food producers and suppliers” will receive funding.
The USDA has said that they intend for this award to be a part of their $100 million healthy meals project, which would boost the availability of nutritious food to students. Making the food more appetizing for kids is a primary goal.
The USDA argues that raising children’s access to healthy and appetizing foods is essential to the success of high school meal standards.