School Nutrition Services (SNS) Research

Publication: Food Policy

Date Published: February 2024

Reference: 

Brown, A. (2024). Who takes up a free lunch? Summer Food Service Program availability and household grocery food spending. 
Food Policy, 123, 102553–102553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.1025

Key Takeaways: The Summer Food Service Program provides free meals to children in low-income neighborhoods as a summertime replacement for the National School Lunch Programs (NSLP). This study provides evidence of how different  SFSPs are available and provide meals across states, which correlates with demographic areas. The study showed a positive relationship between the areas that likely need free meals with SFSLP availability. This means a higher need for meals in certain areas, which means higher availability for SFSLP; however, availability plateus once reaching full coverage in the highest areas of poverty.SFLP meals under some sort of assumption show that households with children reduce weekly grocery food spending by 1.8 percent for each additional meal served; therefore, this spending is driven by households, which leads to ineligibility for subsidized meals in the academic year. The evidence suggests that there are targeting insufficiencies in the SFSP.

#SchoolMealPrograms