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3 Big Takeaways from SNIC 2025 K-12 operators and manufacturers met in Phoenix this week for The School Nutrition Association’s first conference of the year to discuss how they could work together to tackle current challenges impacting the segment.
special attention to the first added sugar phase, which will begin at the start of next school year and will put product-based added sugar restric - tions on breakfast cereals, yogurts and flavored milk. During a session led by Shannon FitzGerald, registered dietician and nutritionist at the Institute of Child Nutrition, manufacturers in the audi - ence shared how they were already offering certain products that would fit the new added sugar restrictions and are working on adding addi - tional products to fit the new stan - dards as well. K-12 operators were also quick to point out that they too were already implementing changes to their menu ahead of the 2025-26 school year to get a head start on getting used to the new regulations. FitzGerald is hopeful that while the added sugar restrictions may be tough for some students (espe - cially the older ones) to get used to initially, eventually, they will come around. She saw this play out with the im -
plementation of the 2010 Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act (HHFKA) which introduced a wave of nutritional changes to school meals programs in the early 2010’s. During that time, FitzGerald was school nutrition di - rector at a district in Ohio and no - ticed that while the high school stu - dents struggled with the changes brought on by HHFKA, the younger students were more accepting of the new regulations since they were not used to the way things had been prior to the changes. “It was a change for [the high schoolers], but our younger kids were just like, ‘Oh, this is how it’s been done,” she shared. 2. AI elicits hesitancy from manufactures While some school nutrition de - partments have leveraged AI to help with certain tasks, some K-12 man - ufactures are still cautious about relying too much on artificial intelli - gence.
BY BENITA GINGERELLA
K -12 school nutrition opera - tors and manufacturers gath - ered in Phoenix this week for the School Nutrition Industry Conference (SNIC) put on by the School Nutrition Association. Over the course of the conference, school nutrition operators and their industry partners discussed every - thing from the new school nutrition standards, to implementing AI and more. Here are three big takeaways from the conference. 1. Operators and industry part- ners are gearing up for added sugar restrictions The U.S. Department of Agricul - ture (USDA) announced its final rule for its updates to the school nutri - tion standards last spring. Operators and their manufac - turer partners are currently paying
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