In May 2025, more than 100 school nutrition professionals convened at SNA’s first Future of the Industry Summit to discuss the school nutrition field’s current challenges and potential solutions.
This white paper highlights the ideas that Summit participants identified as the most compelling and actionable solutions to address the field’s most pressing challenges related to four subject areas: regulation and advocacy, revenue and investment, cost and resource efficiency, and technology and innovation. Their discussions revealed an overarching theme—the need to develop a school nutrition ecosystem that is resilient and can thrive regardless of shifting economic and political tides. Proposed solutions centered on promoting a more flexible school nutrition system, developing new data-driven tools to streamline the supply chain, and advocating for broader awareness of school nutrition programs that rejects the outdated stigmas the field still faces.
The details about the challenges, proposed solutions, and next steps that Summit participants identified are the focus of this white paper.
