USDA Milk Anytime, Anywhere « Back

USDA has finalized the “anytime, anywhere” school milk regulation.

Background

• In 2004, the dairy industry successfully urged Congress to ensure that exclusive beverage sales contracts did not restrict schools’ ability to market milk anytime, anywhere on school property or at school events. Both the National Milk Producers Federation and the International Dairy Foods Association promoted this change in the law.

Recent Events

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed regulations to implement the “anytime, anywhere” rule in 2005. On August 5, USDA made the proposed regulation final, without any change. The “anytime, anywhere” regulation takes effect for the school year that is just about to start.

What Does the Regulation Do?

• Some schools have exclusive sales contracts with soft drink bottlers. These contracts usually provide some revenue to schools in exchange for the bottler’s products being the only soft drinks marketed in the school. However, some of these contracts were so broadly written that schools had to restrict milk as well as soft drinks. This meant that promising sales venues like vending were closed to milk – even as less-nourishing beverages were freely available.
• The law passed by Congress makes it clear that these kinds of contracts cannot restrict milk. Congress did not ban exclusive sales contracts – the law simply says that these contracts may not be used to keep schools from promoting healthy, nutritious milk.
• Of course, nothing in the “anytime, anywhere” law requires schools to offer milk outside the school meal program. The law simply empowers schools and makes certain that no one can keep schools from trying to improve their students’ nutrition.