Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it will be making changes to its school nutrition standards for the 2022-2023 school year (SY 2022-2023), seeking to reinstate health goals that were rolled back during the pandemic.  The USDA issued a new final rule ­ Child Nutrition Programs: Transitional Standards for Milk, Whole Grains, and Sodium –which will establish transitional standards to support the transition of school meal nutrition standards 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 2020-2025.

The new final rule establishes the following requirements beginning SY 2022-2023:

• Milk: Schools and child care providers serving participants ages six and older may offer flavored low-fat (1%) milk in addition to nonfat flavored milk and nonfat or low-fat unflavored milk;

• Whole Grains: At least 80% of the grains served in school lunch and breakfast each week must be whole grain-rich; and

• Sodium: The weekly sodium limit for school lunch and breakfast will remain at the current level in SY 2022-2023. For school lunch only, there will be a 10% decrease in the limit in SY 2023-2024. This aligns with the U.S Food and Drug Administration’s recently released guidance that establishes voluntary sodium reduction targets for processed, packaged, and prepared foods in the U.S.

All other nutrition standards, including fruit and vegetable requirements, will remain the same as the 2012 standards. However, the USDA intends to issue a proposed rule in fall 2022 that moves toward updating long-term nutrition standards.  USDA is required to update school nutrition standards based on recommendations from the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans. As such, USDA will prioritize seeking input from schools, industry and others to inform the final rule process for school nutrition standards. USDA expects to finalize that rule with enough time for schools to plan for SY 2024-2025.