Food and Nutrition Programs

School Meals Nutrition Standards Commission Report

In the Massachusetts Fiscal Year 2024 budget outside section 77 , the legislature charged the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and Department of Public Health with co-chairing a School Meal Nutrition Standards Commission (the Commission) for the purposes of studying nutrition standards and guidelines for school meals served in K–12 public schools participating in the National School Lunch Program throughout the Commonwealth and developing feasibility recommendations for improvements to nutrition content. The full report was issued by the Governor's office in the summer of 2025. This website is intended to host the final copy of the report and provide a summary of the Commission's recommendations for School Nutrition Professionals. DESE's Office for Food and Nutrition Programs (FNP) has developed several resources, outlined here, to support School Food Authorities (SFAs) who want to set implementation goals based on the recommendations made.

As the Commission collaborated on recommendations, they considered that SFAs have different levels of capacity and there is a wide range in how they operate. There are SFAs with skilled culinary staff, and large kitchen spaces to receive unprocessed ingredients and make food from scratch. There are other SFAs that are small, rural, charter or parochial schools, who may have small or no onsite kitchens and can find it difficult to find vendors to deliver to their location or in the small quantities. These schools often rely heavily on processed products. Therefore, the Commission structured the recommendations as broadly, moderately or limited as it relates to statewide feasibility.

Foundational Message from the Commission:

Continued support of Universal Free School Meals is essential to providing a stable source of funding from which school nutrition programs can begin to plan and invest in progress. Additionally, to optimize the benefits of Universal Free School Meals, attention should be paid to the amount of time that students must select and consume meals, as well as the timing of recess to maximize consumption. Research demonstrates that stronger minimum seat time policies can result in increased consumption of school meals and a reduction in food waste.

Based on this research and Commission members' experience, the Commission recommends a 30-minute lunch period to achieve a minimum of 20 minutes of seated time to ensure students have enough time to consume high-quality meals served in the school meal programs. Recess before lunch is an important complementary policy, which research has also shown to increase school meal consumption and reduce food waste.

Specific Recommendations by Topic

Enhancing standards for food served:

  • Broadly feasible: Continue to prioritize state resources and technical assistance available to School Food Authorities to support menu planning and culinary preparation using whole foods, including but not limited to increased beans, peas, and lentils. Offering beans, peas, and lentils beyond the current minimal federal requirements of once per week with the goal of three or more times per week.

  • Moderately feasible: Limit offering foods and beverages that contain non-nutritive sweeteners in reimbursable meals.

  • Limited feasibility: Select stricter dietary specifications around saturated fat beyond the current maximum federal requirements of 10 % of calories over the course of a week.

Vegetarian or vegan options:

  • Broadly feasible: Clearly label and promote vegetarian and vegan entrees and prepared sides served.

  • Moderately feasible: Collect and review local data (student surveys, racial and ethnic data, parent feedback) to identify demand for vegetarian and vegan meals. Consider ways to increase frequency accordingly.

  • Limited feasibility: Offer vegetarian or vegan meals daily. Focus on adapting the main entrée to be a vegetarian or vegan equivalent.

Meal modifications and culturally relevant meals:

  • Broadly feasible: Expand communication and information available to students and families requesting and receiving meal modifications. Increase the variety of modified meals, adapting a close equivalent to the main entrée.

  • Moderately feasible: Provide lactose-free and/or dairy-free nutritionally equivalent fluid milk alternatives 7 CFR § 210.10(d)(2) for students to select independently.

  • Limited feasibility: Collect and review local data (student surveys, racial and ethnic data, parent feedback) to identify demand for culturally relevant, religious, and nonmedical dietary restrictions. Meet identified demand as able.

Transparency around where served food is produced and its nutritional content:

  • Broadly feasible: Identify additional products served in school meals that can be sourced regionally.

  • Moderately feasible: Denote locally sourced produce and other food products.

  • Limited feasibility: Publicly provide nutrition information, including but not limited to dietary specifications outlined in 7 CFR § 210.

Local Priorities Need to Be Centered

Federal regulations set a strong set of standards that all schools are held to. As advancements are considered, each school and district have an inherently unique set of opportunities, needs and challenges. Supporting the advancement of school meals requires a targeted and tailored approach by DESE and partners, so that local community priorities are centered, and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable and Timed) goals can be set and advancements sustained.

Resources for School Food Authorities and School Districts:

FNP has worked to develop several resources to support SFAs initial efforts to assess current operations strengths and opportunities for improvement, set SMART goals and procure unprocessed foods locally.

  1. Menu Strategy Matrix

    The Menu Matrix, created as a result of the Commission, identifies the following as top priorities for school menus in the Commonwealth:

    1. Menus that reflect students — making sure student voice and demographics are reflected on menus.
    2. Reducing ultra processed foods and increasing scratch cooking.
    3. Daily variety of fruits and vegetables offered through the use of salad bars.
    4. Purchasing local fruits, vegetables, proteins, and grains and marketing their source to students.
    5. Increasing the frequency plant-based proteins are offered.
    6. Equity with meal modifications for medically necessary and religious accommodations.

    The matrix categorizes each priority into three categories — minimal, enhanced, and advanced. Each category has a specific identifier for a district to be able to identify their status in each priority of the matrix. The elevated and advanced categories have resources linked to support districts in their progress towards advanced. Districts that categorize as advanced will be shared as success stories and mentor districts who are on the path toward progress. Each SFA should use the Menu Matrix to assess their current menu and create goals around menu priorities in their district that could be improved.

    Future professional development will be geared towards the priorities identified in the Matrix. For schools seeking to improve front line staff culinary skills and knowledge related to scratch cooking districts are encouraged to join CECAP (Creating and Executing a Culinary Action Program). Once in CECAP, a Culinary Consultant will be available to support districts as they work to advance the menu priorities outlined in the Matrix.

  2. Local Wellness Policy Assessment Tool and School Wellness Coaching Program

    A local wellness policy is a written document that guides LEAs efforts to establish an environment that promotes student health, well-being and ability to learn. As outlined above, the commission recommends that local priorities need to be centered, and local wellness policies allow LEAs to set goals and standards specific to their own district and community. School wellness committees provide a unique opportunity for students, families and the community to partner with LEAs to assess local priorities and develop strong policies that support the whole child.

    To help LEAs assess the local wellness policy, DESE, in partnership with the School Wellness Initiative for Thriving Community Health (SWITCH) , developed the Massachusetts Local Wellness Policy Tool. The Massachusetts Local Wellness Policy Tool consists of two parts:

    • The Strength Checklist is designed to assist wellness committees in assessing and revising the local wellness policy so that it is compliant with state and federal requirements.

    • The Implementation Assessment is designed to assist wellness committees in assessing the level of compliance in implementing the Local Wellness Policy (putting policy into practice) and to identify areas of strength and opportunities for growth.

    The tool will also assist LEAs with implementing the Commission's Recommendations; including setting policy goals related to seat time, menu planning and food system education. To meet the Commission's recommendation to center local priorities, LEAs are strongly encouraged to apply to the Massachusetts School Wellness Coaching Program Partnering theory with evidence-based strategies for school wellness success, this program will provide step-by-step guidance for using the Massachusetts Local Wellness Policy Tool and will also ensure compliance with the federal triennial assessment requirement.

  3. Local Food Purchase Tracking

    In school year 2025-2026, SFAs are required to track purchases in accordance to the Buy American provision . To the maximum extent practicable, domestic commodities and products purchased should support the mission of the Child Nutrition Programs, which is to serve children nutritious meals and support American agriculture. FNP is working on the availability of a technology solution to reduce the burden of manually tracking purchases as well as allow SFAs to aggregate purchasing data, and run reports on this data to generate such information as:

    • A list of local and regional producers SFAs have purchased from
    • The dollar value of spend on local, regional, domestic and international purchases
    • The dollar value of local spend within specific product categories (such as fruits, vegetables, dairy, grains, and meat/meat alternates)

    Collecting this data will allow SFAs to make more actionable local purchasing goals and informed procurement decisions, but the availability of this information will also help in the development of a more robust catalogue of local and regional producers and distributors able to provide local and regional products to the K–12 School Nutrition Industry, building upon the exceptional resources already made through DESE's contracted partner, Massachusetts Farm to School , including:

    FNP will continue to elevate local purchasing through the Terrific Tray Competition as well as launch a new "Northeast Food for Schools (NFS) Challenge" this Fall 2025, encouraging SFAs to pledge to invest in Massachusetts producers and regional supply chain relationships that support the Massachusetts economy. DESE will encourage SFAs across the Commonwealth to work together and collectively invest $6 million in the local food system by the end school year 2025-2026. DESE and Massachusetts Farm to School will celebrate these local purchasing gains throughout the year through a new NFS Challenge website, communication spotlights, local purchasing leaderboard, promotional materials for SFAs, and additional incentives.

    FNP is excited to partner with Massachusetts SFA's, as they continue leading the nation in serving delicious, innovative and nutritious meals to set their next goals. Questions about this report or supporting resources can be sent to nutrition@doe.mass.edu or 781-338-6480.

Last Updated: July 31, 2025

Top