Another fiberglass wire mesh

Another fiberglass wire mesh proposed change to nutritional standards comes not from the SNA, but from the dairy industry, which is trying to shore up a dramatic decline in school milk consumption via the School Milk Nutrition Act. Among other provisions, the law would allow the industry to offer not only fat-free flavored milk in schools, but also a 1 percent milk fat version (capped at 150 calories per 8 ounces). The bipartisan bill has its detractors and its inclusion in the CNR isn’t guaranteed, but at a June 16 CNR hearing, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack voiced his approval of the idea and seemed to indicate it might also be accomplished through executive action.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 95 percent of school districts are already successfully meeting the fiberglass wire mesh standards. But in its just-released 2015 annual member survey, the SNA found that close to 70 percent of the surveyed districts felt they had suffered financial harm as a result of the standards.

That’s a compelling finding, but managing a school food program has always been financially challenging under prevailing federal reimbursement rates. For example, the SNA’s 2010 annual member survey (taken two years before the HHFKA went into effect) found that almost the same percentage of respondents (65 percent) were worried about failing to cover their costs. And two years before that, another SNA reportnoted, “Many fiberglass wire mesh still struggle to operate in the black. The current federal reimbursement rate is not enough to keep up with the cost of food, energy, and labor.”

What about reports of students rejecting healthier school food? The evidence is decidedly mixed. A new study released last week appeared in news stories claiming “the Healthy School Lunch Program Is in Trouble” because it found that students’ fruit and vegetable consumption is down and waste is up since the HHFKA’s implementation. But an earlier Harvard School of Public Health study found the just opposite; while fruit consumption remained the same, the researchers said, vegetable consumption had fiberglass wire mesh.

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