GAO Report Suggests School-Meals Safety Initiatives

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report recommending how the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) could improve the safety of school meals purchased through its commodities program. The report recommends that USDA instruct the commodity program to (i) “develop a systematic and transparent process to determine whether foods offered by the program require more-stringent specifications related to microbial contamination, including steps to: identify pathogens, strains of pathogens, or other foods that merit more stringent-specifications; document the scientific basis used to develop the specifications; and review the specifications on a periodic basis”; and (ii) “share information with school districts in a more explicit form regarding the foods covered by more-stringent purchasing specifications related to microbial contamination to enable districts to make more informed choices.”