Ready for Smart Snacks? 9 Tips for Building Support for Healthy Foods!

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) took a major step forward in releasing the Smart Snacks in School nutrition standards for all foods and beverages sold to students during the school day in vending machines, school stores, snack carts and a la carte lines, as well as through fundraising. These standards go into effect July 1, 2014 and apply all around your school campus.

Is your school ready?

Implementing the USDA Smart Snacks in School standards will be a process that will take a collective effort from staff and collaboration with students and families. From building consensus to implementing the standards, the process may seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be difficult! Try this 9-step roadmap to make your Smart Snacks travels manageable, and perhaps have some fun along the way!

1. Know Your Venues: Get organized and take inventory of places in your school where snacks and beverages are sold.
2. Build Consensus: Educate your school community about the standards and build excitement for the opportunity to make your school healthier!
3. Know Your Products: Now that you know where your snacks and beverages are sold, take inventory of them. Need help to ensure your products meet the standards? Use the Smart Snacks Product Calculator or use the Alliance Product Navigator to look up specific brand name products.
4. Engage Your School or District Business Office: Identify vendor contracts based on the inventories you completed.
5. Work with Your Vendors: Start letting your vendors know what items need to be replaced based on the Smart Snacks standards.
6. Combine Your Efforts with Your Neighbors’ Efforts: There is power in numbers! Combine purchasing power to help drive demand and increase volume, or simply get together to learn from one another.
7. Communicate Early: No surprises! Make sure everyone in your school community knows that change is coming.
8. Promote New Healthy Choices: Excitement is contagious! Express your excitement about the new healthy options to your school community. Check out this Bag the Junk blog post for more on how to use “healthy nudges” marketing to promote healthier foods and beverages.
9. Engage Students: Your students are your ultimate customer. Solicit and consider their opinions, ideas, and feedback so that they are more likely to embrace the healthy changes.

Visit the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s website for more information and tools you can use during each of the nine steps, such as plug-and-play presentations to educate different audiences, taste testing tools to engage students, sample newsletters to spread the word with parents and community members, and training materials for cafeteria staff.

Need some inspiration? See how some schools across the nation have already been making successful Smart Snacks changes!