The Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program was launched as an effort to address the loss of access to free and reduced-price school meals due to widespread school closures at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools reopened in a shifting mix of fully virtual, hybrid, and in-person formats and families lacked consistent access…

The FNS Research Corner provides a continuing series to summarize recently completed and current research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the area of child nutrition. Summaries of recently completed research projects and in-progress research are provided in this article.

This report is a followup to an initiative to establish a central website to collect data from States on the National School Lunch and the School Breakfast Programs. A central website could be used by researchers and program administrators to compare and analyze data across State and local areas for participation trends in local school district…

This report describes research that Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) has conducted for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), to develop methods to track the use of "competitive foods" in schools over time. Competitive foods are foods from a la carte cafeteria sales, vending machines, school stores,…

School district administrators can decide whether food service components are operating cost effectively. Explains ways to determine costs of energy, personnel, and supplies and equipment. Two tables provide cost-responsibility checklists for school food services and contracted operations. (MLF)

This handbook is designed to serve as a resource guide to New York school district officials who are involved in the application approval, hearing, and verification processes for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs, and for those exercising the free milk option of the Special Milk Program. Detailed information and clarification…