PediatricDigest

By Marion Nestle

September 15 2026

Who is lobbying about the forthcoming school food rules?

If you want to know why school food is so controversial, and improving its nutrition quality is so difficult, follow the money.

A reader, Jennifer Windh, says she is a mom of a second grader in Texas (Tomball School District) and a member of “Make Texans Healthy Again.” She tells me she asked ChatGPT to summarize information about food lobbying on the new school food rules:

I’ve been tracking USDA’s forthcoming proposed rule updating the Child Nutrition Programs to align with the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (RIN 0584-AF17). USDA sent the proposed rule to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review on July 20, and USDA’s regulatory agenda currently targets publication in September.

While the proposed rule itself is not yet public, OIRA’s public meeting records give us some clues about what may be under consideration. Outside groups can request meetings with OIRA while a significant regulation is under review, and OIRA publishes the identity of the groups, attendees, and materials they submit.

Much applause to Jennifer for digging into who is pushing OIRA about food and nutrition standards for school meals.

Date	Organization	Key Participants / Interests	Documents Submitted
Aug. 10	USA Rice	Tracy Gensler; Cameron Jacobs	USA Rice Proposed School Meal Nutrition Standards Final OMB
Aug. 11	American Bakers Association	Campbell Genn; Eric Dell; Rasma Zvaners; others	None listed
Aug. 13	American Frozen Food Institute	AFFI; Schwan’s; Wyman’s; Wawona Frozen Foods; Conagra; J.M. Smucker	3 documents concerning smoothies/frozen foods
Aug. 14	National CACFP Association	McKenzie Brunner; Alexia Thex	CACFP Alignment and Reality of Implementing 2025–2030 DGAs
Sept. 1	Plant Powered School Meals Coalition	Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine; Alexandria City Public Schools; Plant Powered School Meals Coalition	5 documents concerning meat/MMA requirements, nondairy milk, processed meat, and related issues
Sept. 2	School Nutrition Association	SNA; Caprock Strategies	None confirmed
Sept. 3	The Grain Chain	Campbell Genn	None confirmed
Sept. 4	Urban School Food Alliance	Urban School Food Alliance; OFW Law	None confirmed
Sept. 8	TBD	Meeting occurred/scheduled; full organization and participant information needs confirmation	TBD
Sept. 11 – 2:00 p.m. ET	TBD	OIRA meeting on USDA school-food rule	TBD
Sept. 11 – 2:30 p.m. ET	Meat Institute appears to be requestor	Susan Backus listed as requestor; final OIRA participant list pending	TBD

The table does not say what these participants were asking for, but let’s speculate. The new dietary guidelines call for more real food, less highly processed food, and less sugar, but more protein, healthy fats, and whole milk dairy.

The trade associations want the USDA to require meals to have more of their products: rice, bread (not too much whole wheat), frozen foods, grains (preferably not whole), and meat.

The National CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program) Association advocates for this desperately underfunded program and surely is asking for more funding to comply with new DGA standards.

The Plant Powered groups want more plant foods and less meat and dairy.

The Urban School Food Alliance works with school districts to provide healthy food to low-income kids. I’ll bet it’s asking for more funding too.

Of special interest is the position of the School Nutrition Association, which supposedly represents school food service workers.

It is heavily sponsored by food companies. Its position on forthcoming rules is that

Any new rules limiting UPFs in schools must ensure meal programs are permitted to serve nutrient-dense, pre-prepared foods. Schools are simply not equipped to scratch prepare all menu items – more than 93% cited the need for more staff, culinary training, equipment and infrastructure to reduce reliance on UPFs.

To see what attempts to improve the nutritional quality of school meals are up against, take a look at the SNA’s talking points defending highly processed snack foods as well as sugary foods.

As it happens, a new analysis shows that basically all snack foods sold in schools are ultra-processed.

The big questions:

Will the calls for less ultra-processed food and sugar survive this kind of lobbying opposition?
Will school meals get enough funding to do what the guidelines call for?

I can’t wait to find out.

The post Who is lobbying about the forthcoming school food rules? appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

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