30% NY Initiative

New York school lunch programs that spend 30% of their food budgets on NY food products are eligible for reimbursements. Schools that meet this standard can get back up to twenty-five cents per meal the following school year. The NYS Education Department administers the 30% initiative per Chapter 56 of the NY State Laws of 2018.

This webpage includes all of NYS Department of Agriculture and Market's 30% NY resources and guides, including the 30% NY Initiative application, guidance, calculator, product formulation statement guide, and more.

A collection of products that qualify for the 30% NY Initiative, and are widely available for purchase.

Tools designed by CCE Harvest NY or adapted from tools developed by school districts to assist with tracking NY product purchases.

This report analyzes procurement data and survey results from 53 of the 57 school food authorities (SFAs) that qualified for the 30% NY Initiative during the 2019-20 school year to shed light on procurement trends, varying pathways, best practices, and strategic approaches to successfully achieving the 30% NY Initiative.

Harvest NY has conducted several trainings, webinars, and tutorials about the 30% NY Initiative and other topics which can be viewed on their YouTube page.

This chart shows local food items you can swap for commonly used USDA foods, and can be used to help you identify what local foods you could procure instead of USDA foods.

This document provides acceptable/model bid specifications for NY food products, and includes a tab for unprocessed foods for which you can specify "local."

A fact sheet describing the basics of the 30% NY Initiative.

30% NY Initiative

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