School Breakfast Program

Menus must be in compliance with all meal pattern requirements regardless of the number of serving lines in the cafeteria. Minimum and maximum ranges for grains, meat/meat alternates and calories must be met by all food items on the menu for the entire cafeteria.  Each physical serving line must also be in compliance with the minimum and maximum ranges.

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued the updated Questions and Answers and Offer Versus Serve (OVS) Guidance Manual on June 14, 2013. The following provides a brief overview of the changes outlined in those documents.

At breakfast, schools must offer all three required food components in at least the minimum required amounts. The components are: grains (with the optional meats/meat alternates); juice/fruit/vegetable; and milk.

Local Education Agencies (LEAs) participating in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs should be aware that there is no federal or State regulation prohibiting students from having food or eating on the school bus.  This prohibition only applies to bus drivers.  The policy allowing or not allowing students to eat and drink on the bus is decided at the local level.

The issue of handling leftover food in school kitchens has been brought to our attention. In some instances there seems to be confusion about the proper procedures related to leftover food.

The United States Department of Agriculture has been a proponent of expanding the national movement to use food recovery and gleaning as an effective means of reducing food waste and helping the hungry for decades.  The NYS Senate (S5664-B) and Assembly (A2409-B) passed a Bill effective March 2018 to amend Education Law Section 305, add

It has come to our attention that some schools are serving and claiming inappropriate cheese items as their meat/meat alternate component. There are certain types of cheese products that are not allowable to count toward the meat/meat alternate component.

Cheese items labeled “imitation cheese” or “cheese product” are not valid types of cheese and cannot be counted as meat/meat alternates. These types of cheese items have never been creditable components in the Child Nutrition Programs.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) published, “Nutrition Standards for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs” on January 26, 2012.  This final rule removes Section I. Formulated Grain-Fruit Products from Appendix A to Part 220 – Alternate Foods for Meals (attached).

The Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs final rule was published on January 26, 2012.  The final rule gives schools the option to offer commercially prepared tofu as a meat alternate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP),  allowing schools to further diversify the sources of meat alternates available to students and meet the dietary needs of vegetarians and culturally diverse groups in schools.  The provision is effective July 1, 2012.

The final rule published on January 26, 2012, requires that frozen fruit served in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) contain no added sugar beginning in School Year (SY)

2012-2013.  Since 2009, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reduced the amount of added sugars in packing media for frozen fruits offered to States; however, most of the frozen strawberries, peaches and apricots offered by USDA currently contain added sugars. 

Recent Coordinated Review Effort (CRE) Monitoring Reviews indicate that several schools are allowing adults (teachers and staff) to charge their meals.  In some instances the account balances are significant and are not always paid.  When adults receive meals at no charge, federal funds intended to subsidize the meals for children are inappropriately subsidizing adult meals.  Adults should be paying for their meals at the time of service or setting up pre-paid accounts.