School Food Safety Practices in USA

Kwak, Tong Kyung; Moon, Hye Kyung

Abstract

The Purposes of this article were to review school meal programs and school food safety practices in USA and to draw up improvement plan of school foodservice in Korea. American school meal programs are composed of national school lunch program(NSLP), school breakfast program(SBP), special milk program(SMP) and summer food service program(SFSP). More than 29 million children receive meals daily. School districts and independent schools that choose to take part in the NSLP get cash subsidies and donated commodities from the USDA for each meal they serve. In case of NSLP, around 59% of the participant students are benefited from free or reduced price. According to the U.S. Government Accounting Office, outbreaks of foodborne disease in schools are rare, but appear to be increasing in incidence proportional to overall increases. School outbreaks tends to comprise a greater number of large outbreaks and this shows a similarity with the foodborne disease trend in Korea. School districts, federal agencies, and state and local agencies in USA use or suggest useful food safety practices for school meal programs. They told that four of these practices had the potential to enhance the safety of school meal programs. The four practices are (1) employing key foodservice personnel who are trained and certified in food safety practices, (2) implementing a risk-based approach for safely preparing, storing, and serving foods, (3) purchasing precooked or irradiated meal and poultry products, and (4) applying the more stringent purchasing specifications that USDA uses when purchasing some of the food commodities it donates to schools.