School Food Nutrition Standards are Achievable, Report Finds

 From the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The 2021 School Meals Corporate Report Card is out. Read it here.

School meal programs have many choices for K-12 products that meet existing and proposed standards

Full story here.

The majority of K-12 school food products sold by the largest foodservice companies meet key federal nutrition standards and could meet new goals that further support children’s health, according to a new report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The 2021 School Meals Corporate Report Card analyzed nearly 2,000 K-12 products offered by 28 major foodservice companies to see if they met existing whole grain-rich (made with at least 51 percent whole grains) and sodium requirements, two areas that schools claim have been challenging to meet. It also assessed whether companies meet new proposed goals for added sugars, artificial sweeteners of concern, and synthetic dyes.

The report found that all companies had over 75 percent compliance with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) whole grain-rich requirements for the majority of grain food groups. Companies were either close to or at 100 percent compliance for USDA’s current sodium targets for lunch, the main source of sodium in school meals. In addition, most companies would meet a new standard, proposed in the report, that would require meals contain no more than 10 percent of calories from added sugars. Nearly all products would meet a proposed synthetic dye- and artificial sweetener-free standard. (Synthetic dyes are linked to behavioral issues in susceptible children, and certain artificial sweeteners should be avoided, primarily due to cancer concerns.) This means that schools have plenty of healthy choices from which they can select in their efforts to comply with the USDA and proposed nutrition standards.

"It’s encouraging to see that major foodservice companies have largely been able to deliver K-12 products that meet nutrition requirements, allowing schools to buy foods that meet federal guidelines and provide students with healthy meals,” said Colin Schwartz, deputy director of federal affairs at CSPI. “We urge the industry to continue to reformulate the minority of non-compliant products and support strong, science-based nutrition standards. We also urge the Biden administration to set stronger nutrition standards for schools.” 

Companies that sell salty culprits for lunch like pizzas, sandwiches, and burritos were virtually at 100 percent compliance with current sodium targets. In fact, none of the median amounts of sodium in any of these food categories exceeded the lunch target levels for any age. But there are exceptions. Schwan Foods, the nation’s largest school food pizza manufacturer, makes an easily compliant whole grain-rich pizza with 470 mg of sodium per slice, but also makes a personal pizza with a whopping 1,100 mg sodium (and not whole grain-rich). Two seemingly similar whole grain-rich burritos from Foster Farms can differ by 350 mg of sodium, either making or breaking compliance.