A Northwest Regional Nutrition Consultant for the Tennessee Department of Education led a webinar demonstration of the USDA Food Buying Guide and the Food Buying Guide calculator, explaining how school nutrition staff can use the tool to determine how individual food items “credit” toward meal-pattern requirements and to compute purchase quantities.

The consultant said the Food Buying Guide is available as an interactive web tool and a PDF from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service and that users can sign in to save favorites and shopping lists. “Our mission statement is to cultivate a culture of integrity, knowledge, and collaboration by empowering school nutrition professionals to serve nutritious meals, fuel student success, and build thriving communities,” the consultant said at the start of the presentation.

Why it matters: The Food Buying Guide and related resources (including Exhibit A — the grain requirements chart, Child Nutrition or CN labels, product formulation sheets and USDA Foods product information sheets) are primary sources used to verify how menu items meet National School Lunch Program and breakfast program meal-pattern requirements. Accurate crediting affects menu compliance and ordering quantities for cafeterias serving K–12 students.

Key points from the presentation

• Crediting components: The consultant explained that food items are assigned to meal components (meat/meat alternates, grains, vegetables, fruits, and milk) and that crediting metadata shows how a purchased unit converts to serving equivalents. For example, a search result for fresh carrots (as purchased, without tops and unpeeled) showed 10.31 quarter-cup servings per pound; when set to a half-cup serving the tool recalculated to 5.15 half-cup servings per pound.

• Grain crediting and Exhibit A: The consultant reviewed two grain-crediting methods: searching individual products (for example, two graham crackers can provide a 0.5-ounce-equivalent if they weigh at least 14 grams; four crackers at 28 grams can credit as a full 1-ounce grain equivalent) and using Exhibit A (the Grain Requirements for Child Nutrition Programs) that groups products and lists weight requirements and footnotes (for example, grain-based desserts in red are not creditable for Pre-K or after-school snacks under the current rules).

• Worked examples and math: The presenter demonstrated practical calculations. For a manager who needs each grab-and-go salad to include a 2-ounce grain equivalent, the consultant walked through using product weights (e.g., three 14-gram cracker packs plus one 7-gram crouton pack yields 49 grams and meets the 44-gram minimum for a 2-ounce equivalent). For fresh produce, the consultant showed a strawberries example: using the Food Buying Guide’s yield, a half-cup strawberry serving equated to about 3.05 ounces per serving; for 300 half-cup servings that computes to 915 ounces or about 57.19 pounds of strawberries.

• Food Buying Guide Calculator and shopping lists: The presenter highlighted the calculator that builds shopping lists across menu components. In a high-school Thanksgiving-lunch example, the tool computed 54.82 pounds (rounded to a 55-pound purchase unit) of turkey breast to provide 252 two-ounce portions; for canned vegetables the tool accounted for on-hand inventory (six number-10 cans on hand reduced required purchases to seven additional number-10 cans to meet 250 half-cup portions of sweet potatoes).

• Supplemental resources: The presenter shared a custom spreadsheet summarizing common fresh fruits and vegetables with target edible-portion weights per serving (for example: half-cup broccoli florets ≈ 1.11 ounces edible portion; half-cup baby carrots ≈ 2.48 ounces; half-cup apple edible portion ≈ 2.20 ounces) and a step-by-step guide for frontline staff on using a digital scale and visual reference photos to standardize portions.

Quotes and attribution

The presentation included direct instructional remarks by the Northwest Regional Nutrition Consultant for the Tennessee Department of Education, such as: “So when we refer to crediting, it's a process designed to specify how individual food items contribute to the meal pattern requirements.”

Discussion, distribution and next steps

The session concluded with the presenter saying the webinar would be recorded and resources shared; an evaluation link was posted during the session. The consultant encouraged attendees to share the materials with frontline cafeteria staff once the handouts and visuals are finalized.

Ending

The webinar provided step-by-step demonstrations of USDA Food Buying Guide functions and concrete examples for converting product weights to meal-pattern servings. The presenter emphasized using the interactive tool, Exhibit A, CN labels and the calculator together to ensure menus both credit correctly and produce accurate purchase orders; the recording and the presenter’s supplemental spreadsheet will be distributed to attendees for local use.