Development and Implementation of Healthy Meals Incentives Recognition Awards and Sub-Grants for School Food Authorities | USDA FNS 2023 HMI

Opportunity Information: Apply for USDA FNS 2023 HMI

The USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) funding opportunity titled "Development and Implementation of Healthy Meals Incentives Recognition Awards and Sub-Grants for School Food Authorities" supports the broader Healthy Meals Incentives (HMI) Initiative, which is designed to raise the nutritional quality of K-12 school meals nationwide. The initiative centers on encouraging practical, on-the-ground improvements in school meal programs by recognizing strong performers, providing targeted technical assistance, sharing workable models across districts, and offering grant support to help districts overcome common barriers to serving healthier meals. The overall aim is to drive long-term "food systems transformation" within school nutrition programs so that healthier options like whole grains, vegetables, legumes, and fruits, along with culturally relevant foods, become more available, affordable, and widely used in school cafeterias.

This particular request for applications (RFA) is not a direct grant competition for individual School Food Authorities (SFAs). Instead, USDA FNS intends to make a single large cooperative agreement with one non-governmental entity that will run major parts of the HMI Initiative on FNS's behalf. In a cooperative agreement, the award recipient typically works closely with the federal agency, meaning FNS will likely have substantial involvement in planning, oversight, and implementation. The selected partner would be responsible for designing and operating the recognition awards program for SFAs, administering sub-grants to small and/or rural SFAs, and planning and delivering convenings known as Healthy Meals Summits.

A major component supported through this cooperative agreement is the Healthy Meals Incentives Recognition Awards. These awards are intended to identify SFAs that have made meaningful improvements in the nutritional quality of their school meals and to elevate their approaches as examples other districts can adopt. The recognition aspect is not just ceremonial; it is meant to function as a structured method for collecting, validating, and widely sharing best practices that have already been tested in real school meal settings. In practice, this could include methods for increasing scratch cooking, expanding student acceptance of healthier menus, improving procurement practices, or successfully incorporating more fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole-grain items while still operating within school nutrition constraints.

Another key piece is the Healthy Meals Incentives Grants for Small and/or Rural SFAs, which would be administered as competitive sub-grants by the cooperative agreement recipient. These sub-grants can be up to $150,000 per award and are aimed at small and/or rural SFAs that face specific, common challenges that make nutrition improvements harder to implement. The RFA highlights issues such as limited staffing capacity, difficulty accessing training and professional development, higher food costs caused by limited purchasing power, lack of physical space, and outdated kitchen equipment. The intent is to help these SFAs overcome those constraints so they can improve meal quality and move toward meeting the standards associated with the HMI Recognition Award criteria. In other words, the sub-grants serve as a practical on-ramp for districts that want to improve but need resources to modernize operations, build skills, or change menus and procurement patterns.

The opportunity also includes planning and implementing Healthy Meals Summits. These summits are meant to convene HMI Recognition Award recipients and School Food Systems Transformation grantees to celebrate accomplishments, exchange lessons learned, and discuss how to sustain improvements over time. The convening function is an important part of the initiative because it turns individual district successes into shared field knowledge, helping effective strategies spread faster and reducing the need for each district to reinvent solutions on its own. It also reinforces sustainability by focusing attention on how districts can maintain gains amid staffing changes, budget fluctuations, and evolving supply chains.

While the overall HMI Initiative includes School Food Systems Transformation Grants, this specific RFA makes clear that those grants are not included under this announcement and will be offered separately under a different RFA. Still, they are part of the same broader strategy. The initiative expects that improving school menus and increasing adoption of healthier meal practices will increase utilization and demand for nutritious agricultural commodities and products, including whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes, as well as food products that reflect diverse cultures. By stimulating demand and supporting better procurement and menu planning, these efforts may also indirectly benefit producers and suppliers that sell into school meal markets, particularly when districts expand local purchasing, incorporate more local agricultural products into scratch cooking, or adopt culturally diverse menu items that require different ingredients and suppliers.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary funding opportunity issued by USDA FNS under CFDA 10.579 (Agriculture, Food and Nutrition) and uses a cooperative agreement as the funding instrument. Eligible applicants include public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, and nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education). USDA anticipated making one award, with an award ceiling of $47,000,000. The funding opportunity number is USDA FNS 2023 HMI, with a posting date of September 22, 2022, and an original application closing date of November 28, 2022.

In practical terms, the opportunity is essentially seeking a national-level implementing partner capable of building and running an awards-and-subgrant program at scale, supporting school districts through guidance and technical assistance, ensuring that promising practices are captured and shared in a way that other SFAs can actually replicate, and organizing high-impact convenings to keep momentum going. The through-line across all activities is improving the nutritional quality of school meals while helping districts, especially small and rural ones, address the operational and market barriers that often prevent healthier meals from being feasible on a day-to-day basis.

• The Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service in the agriculture, food and nutrition sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Development and Implementation of Healthy Meals Incentives Recognition Awards and Sub-Grants for School Food Authorities" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.579.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 22, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Nov 28, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $47,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for USDA FNS 2023 HMI

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