School Nutrition Professionals' Experiences with Food Safety and Special Diets in School Meals during the Initial COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Federally funded school meals, such as the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, can help alleviate food insecurity. Meals served as part of these programs are required by law to be modified when medically necessary, such as food allergies and special diets. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused many schools across the United States to close, but schools quickly modified meal-serving models. The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of school nutrition professionals relative to food safety and providing special diets through modified serving models. A survey was distributed to a convenience sample of child nutrition professionals via social media recruitment and e-mails (n = 504). The survey had both closed-ended questions and one open-ended question exploring food safety and special diet accommodations. At the time of the survey, most respondents (68.3%) had been involved in COVID-19 emergency feeding for 3 to 4 weeks. Results indicated that although most child nutrition professionals did not find food safety easier or more difficult during the initial onset of COVID-19, 34.8% of respondents were not taking food temperatures for hot and cold meals during meal service and were not able to obtain (or did not have enough) equipment necessary for holding hot foods (53.0%). Most respondents (60.2%) also indicated that they were not accommodating children with special diets. Themes from the qualitative analysis indicated participants had challenges obtaining specialty items, had little time to make accommodations, or had a limited supply from vendors to accommodate these diets. To prevent food insecurity and to maintain health during the pandemic, specific solutions for at-risk populations, such as those who experience food allergies, must be considered. HIGHLIGHTS

Challenges and Opportunities for Equity in US School Meal Programs: A Scoping Review of Qualitative Literature Regarding the COVID-19 Emergency

“…Some of these challenges aligned with those described in prior research on summer meal programs, but were amplified by the pandemic: limited awareness of/dissatisfaction with the program, inconvenient times for families, lack of transportation, stigma, and limited options for religious conventions or dietary needs [37,38,41,46,49,53]. Pandemic-specific challenges included supply chain issues (i.e., being unable to receive the variety of foods obtained in the past), limited communication to families about how and where to access meals, and excessive waste [37][38][39]41,[45][46][47][49][50][51][52]54] Authors described how supply chain issues exacerbated family dissatisfaction-in one study, families reported stopping the use of the school meal programs because their kids refused to eat the food provided [53]. Parents in one study reported on a variety of ways that communication could have been more equitable (e.g., signage in multiple languages, more mail notifications for households without reliable Internet) [49].…”

“…Other operational challenges included staff burnout, staff illness, limited volunteer capacity, and staff feeling underappreciated [38,40,42,[45][46][47]50]; difficulty predicting participation numbers, particularly as a result of competition with other nearby food distribution programs and federal programs such as Pandemic EBT (a USDA food assistance financial benefit issued to families to support buying groceries during the COVID-19 pandemic) [38][39][40]46,47,50,52]; financial deficits resulting from increased operational costs and unpredictable participation numbers [40,41,47,50]; and food safety concerns, such as maintaining the cold chain with deliveries [43]. Food service directors also described challenges related to the USDA waivers, such as lack of adequate resources or knowledge to implement the waivers and a lack of communication from federal and state agencies [39,42,48,[50][51][52]54].…”