Expand Your Food Service Guidelines Initiative

Once your food service guidelines initiative is off to a good start and you have learned which activities ease the implementation of food service guidelines and which activities help overcome challenges you might encounter, you are ready to expand your program. You can do this by applying food service guidelines in new institutions or venues or by adapting food service guidelines in places where food is served or distributed.

Apply Food Service Guidelines in New Institutions or Venues

To expand food service guidelines into new institutions or venues, you can:

• Address Different Venues within the Same Facilities
  You may have concentrated your efforts initially on applying food service guidelines only to vending machines or in cafeterias at your chosen setting. Since leadership at this setting supports having healthier foods available, there may be a complementary opportunity to expand your initiative to other venues such as cafeterias or snack bars (if vending machines were addressed previously) or vending machines and micro markets (if cafeterias and other concessions were addressed previously).
• Recruit More Facilities of the Same Type of Institution
  You may have begun implementing food service guidelines in one or two facilities of the same institutional setting (for example, hospitals). You can now expand your efforts by recruiting other hospitals in your state or region to adopt and implement food service guidelines.
• Recruit Different Types of Institutional Facilities
  You may have started food service guidelines implementation in only one type of setting (for example, worksites). Now that you have experience in guiding the adoption and implementation of food service guidelines, you can begin to add food service guidelines in other settings in your state or community, such as parks, colleges, or recreation centers.

Adapt Food Service Guidelines in Places Where Food is Served or Distributed

Food service guidelines are generally written for places where food is sold to customers who purchase their food and beverages from a variety of choices. You can expand your food service guidelines work by adapting guidelines that are aligned with the current Dietary Guidelines for Americanspdf icon[PDF-30.6MB]external icon to places where food is served or to places where food is distributed.

• Places Where Food is Served
  In places where food is served, such as eldercare, faith-based, or correctional facilities, staff at the facility are responsible for providing meals that meet all or part of individuals’ daily or weekly nutrition needs. Individual choice may be limited in these types of facilities.
• Places Where Food is Distributed
  In places where food is distributed, such as food banks or pantries, food is purchased or received through donations and given to individuals to prepare and/or eat at home.