Students at Rochester City School District in Rochester, N.Y., will no longer receive milk with their meals due to a shortage of milk cartons.
The district released a statement on X, stating that due to a nationwide shortage of material used to make milk cartons, juice will be offered to students as an extra fruit option in place of milk. It did not disclose when it expects to serve milk again.
Since COVID-19, school nutrition professionals have faced continuous supply chain challenges. A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), revealed that 97% of K-12 operators said they were still experiencing one or more supply chain-related issues in the first quarter of the 2022-2023 school year. Menu item shortages were also listed as one of the top three challenges impacting K-12 operators in a similar study by the School Nutrition Association earlier this year.
Some school nutrition operators are worried that the proposed changes to the School Nutrition Standards, which would enforce stricter limits on things like sodium in school meals, will make supply shortages even worse due to vendors pulling K-12 product since they won’t be able to meet the new requirements.
The USDA has invested just under $3.1 billion since December 2021 to help school nutrition teams overcome supply chain issues and source product for meals. Earlier this month, it also announced a partnership with the Urban School Food Alliance to share best practices and develop additional tools and resources to help schools with procurement.
Some K-12 operators have leaned heavily on local suppliers throughout the pandemic, finding them to be more reliable than large vendors. At Dover-Eyota Public Schools in Eyota, Minn., the nutrition team has been able to continue to provide ground beef patties during COVID-19 since it sources beef from a local farmer. Ashland School District in Ashland, Ore., has also been able to navigate product shortages through its partnership with the campus farm at nearby Southern Oregon University.