School Lunches: Supply Chain Disruptions and Student Participation

 

Every school day, K-12 schools serve nutritious meals to about 30 million children through the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs, providing the fuel kids need to grow, learn, and thrive. And the school meals food system has proven to be resilient, even though food supply chain challenges still linger today as a result of the COVID pandemic. In an effort to provide the best support to states and schools, USDA began surveying school food authorities, also known as SFAs – who operate school meal programs for one or more schools – to gather information regarding their school food challenges. Two previous surveys have already been published about school years 2021–22 and 2022–23. Now, USDA is sharing the results from its third SFA Survey on Supply Chain Disruptions and Student Participation, which examines school year 2023-24. We are also releasing a new data visualization that compares data from the second and third surveys.

Click to view the dashboard

Here are five insights about the state of the school meals supply chain in school year 2023-24:

1. 95% of SFAs experienced at least one supply chain-related challenge, but overall, the median number of challenges was less than the previous school year.
2. Similar to the previous school year, more than 80% of SFAs reported high food costs, making it the most common challenge.
3. More than 30% of SFAs reported increasing the use of scratch cooking to address supply chain challenges during SY 2023–24. Note: Scratch cooking is preparing meals with fresh ingredients, rather than using ready-made foods.
4. More than 20% of SFAs reported increasing purchases of local foods to address supply chain challenges.
5. While almost 25% of SFAs reported less student participation due to supply chain challenges, schools in states offering Healthy School Meals for All were less likely to see a reduction in student participation, compared to states not offering Healthy School Meals for All. Note: “Healthy School Meals for All” refers to states that are providing meals at no cost to all students.

Overall, these results show that in many ways, the supply chain has improved over the past three school years. Yet, schools still need support to overcome any challenge that might stand in the way of them serving nutritious meals to students.

The supply chain for school meal programs is strongest when schools have relationships with local suppliers. That’s one of the reasons why, earlier this month, USDA launched the Local Food for Schools and Child Care Cooperative Agreement, which will provide children with nutritious food from local growers and producers.

USDA is making up to $471.5 million available for states and territories to purchase local, unprocessed or minimally processed domestic foods for use by schools participating in our National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs, while up to $188.6 million will be made available for Child and Adult Care Food Program institutions serving children.