CACFP At-Risk Afterschool Care Centers and Outside School Hours Care Centers

At-Risk Afterschool Care Centers and Outside School Hours Care Centers participating in CACFP must provide meals that meet meal pattern requirements.

Healthy Meals and Nutrition Environment

CACFP afterschool sites provide a much-needed service to their communities. They give children a safe place to go after school and nutritious food that gives them the energy to concentrate on homework and join their friends in physical, educational, and social activities. At-Risk Afterschool Centers and Outside School Hours Care Centers (OSHCC) serve an important role in helping young children develop good eating and physical activity habits.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) meal pattern requires afterschool sites to serve meals that meet the nutritional needs of children, are consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs), and are appetizing. Meal pattern requirements assist the menu planner in providing well-balanced meals and snacks that provide the appropriate amount of energy and nutrients a child needs during critical stages of growth. The At-Risk Afterschool meal pattern lists the requirements for children 6 to 12 years of age. Children 13 to 18 must be served the minimum or larger than those portions specified for ages 6 to 12.

The DGAs are jointly issued and updated every five years by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services. They are designed for policymakers and nutrition and health professionals. The aim of the DGAs is to promote health and prevent disease. The DGAs provide four overarching guidelines that encourage healthy eating patterns at each stage of life and recognize that individuals will need to make shifts in their food and beverage choices to achieve a healthy pattern.

The 2025-2030 DGAs recommend that Americans to prioritize diets built on whole, nutrient-dense foods – protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and whole grains, paired with a reduction in highly processed foods, laden with refined carbohydrates, added sugars, excess sodium, unhealthy fats, and chemical additives. 

The Key Recommendations call for Americans to:

• Eat the Right Amount for You
• Prioritize Protein Foods at Every Meal
• Consume Dairy
• Eat Vegetables & Fruits Throughout the Day
• Incorporate Healthy Fats
• Focus on Whole Grains
• Limit Highly Processed Foods, Added Sugars, & Refined Carbohydrate
• Limit Alcoholic Beverages 

More information about the 2025-2030 DGAs is available at https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf. 

Water Availability

Drinking water must be available to children throughout the day, including at meal times. While water must be made available to children during meals, it is not part of the reimbursable meals and cannot be served in lieu of milk. Water can be made available to children in a variety of ways, including simply providing water to a child when it is requested. Contact the CACFP for questions pertaining to this requirement. (CACFP 20-2011 Child Nutrition Reauthorization 2010: Water Availability in the CACFP, May 11, 2011)

For more information, see the Team Nutrition worksheet, Offering Water in the USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program, available here.

Menu Planning Guidelines

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) Meal Pattern Requirements, the Crediting Handbook for the CACFP, and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Buying Guide (FBG) for Child Nutrition Program ensure that children participating in the CACFP are served foods that supply the nutrients they need. Site menus have a major influence on the development of children’s eating habits. It is important that menus help establish patterns for healthy eating.

Follow These Guidelines When Developing Menus:

• Select a form to document your daily menus. The menu template is recommended; these forms list the meal components required for each meal and snack. A five and seven-day version is available at the CACFP Website - Forms.
• Choose the type of menu format you will use; a three-to-four-week cycle menu format is recommended. A cycle menu is a set of menus that are repeated in the same order for a period of time, typically two, three, or four weeks. Cycle menus provide variety by offering different foods and/or different food combinations each day during the cycle.
• When there are substitutions from the planned menu, mark through the original menu item and enter the substitution. The original daily dated menu that notes substitutions must be kept with the monthly records and retained for three years plus the current year.
• Know the cooking abilities of the person(s) preparing the meals. Review the menu and recipes with the cook and provide training as necessary. Select or develop standardized recipes for menu items.
• Plan menu items based on the equipment available in the facility’s kitchen.
• Include all meal components in at least the minimum portion sizes required for reimbursement. It is usually easiest to start by planning the main dish or entrée.
• Plan menus that keep the nutritional needs of children in focus. Be sure to include a good source of iron and Vitamins A and C.
  • Iron sources include asparagus, lima beans, sweet potatoes, squash, 100% vegetable juice, turkey, tuna, apricots, cherries, dried fruit, dried peas, eggs, meat, and green beans.
  • Vitamin A sources include apricots, cantaloupe, cherries, plums, egg yolk, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, kale, peas, and sweet potatoes.
  • Vitamin C sources include citrus fruit and juice, broccoli, asparagus, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, snow pears, peppers (green and red), cantaloupe, honeydew melon, mango, papaya, kiwi, and strawberries.
• Limit high-fat and sodium meats to no more than one time per week. This includes but is not limited to hot dogs, sausage, lunchmeat, and processed meats.
• Grain-based desserts do not count toward the grain requirement with the exception of sweet crackers, which includes graham crackers of all shapes and animal crackers.
• Specify the type of fruit, juice, or vegetables on your menus to assure a variety of food is served and to document the nutritional value of the meal.
• Specify the type of cereal and yogurt to ensure sugar requirements are met. Maintain documentation with the CACFP records.
• Make sure the meals look and taste good. Introduce new foods along with familiar foods that children already like.
• Include foods that are different shapes: round, square, rectangular, and different colors: yellow, orange, red, and green.
• Combine foods that have different textures: soft, crunchy, crisp, creamy, and smooth, and different tastes: sweet, sour, tart, salty, spicy, and mild.
• Consider the different ethnic and cultural food habits and preferences of children.
• Fat-free or low-fat milk is required at each meal for participants who are two years of age or older. Milk served to one-year-olds must be unflavored whole milk. Serve breastmilk or iron-fortified infant formula to infants through 11 months of age. Flavored fat-free or low-fat milk may be served to participants six years old or older. Document the type of milk served on the menu. This includes listing the fat content (whole, low-fat/1%, fat-free/skim) and whether the milk is flavored.
• The facility may not add syrup or other forms of flavoring to unflavored milk or sugar to the unflavored milk because doing so would turn the beverage into flavored milk. Flavored milk is not allowed as part of a CACFP reimbursable meal for children 1 through 5 years old.
• Use fats and oils sparingly in food preparation and limit the use of salt and high-sodium foods.

Standardized recipes: A standardized recipe is one that has been tried several times using the same method and equipment. A standardized recipe produces consistency in product quality and yields the same number of servings every time it is used if the same procedures, equipment, and ingredients are used. Because standardized recipes specify exact amounts of ingredients, it is easier to manage the cost and storage of foods. A link to the USDA Standardized Recipes is available on the CACFP website .

The USDA FBG for Child Nutrition Programs is available as an interactive web-based tool, as a mobile app, and as a downloadable PDF. USDA resources help you determine the right amount of food and the appropriate type of food to purchase for your program. These resources aid in determining the specific meal contribution each food makes towards the meal pattern requirements, as well as providing information on recipe analysis. The FBG, Web-based Interactive FBG, The FBG Mobile App, and The FBG Calculator are available online at the USDA website. The Crediting Handbook for CACFP is a companion guide to the FBG that contains additional information on creditable foods served in adult day care centers. Links to both resources are also available on the CACFP website .

Offer Versus Serve Meal Service Option

Regulations permit the use of Offer Versus Serve (OVS) meal service option for At-Risk Afterschool programs. OVS is allowable for breakfast, lunch, and supper meals, but it is not allowed at snack meals.

OVS is an approach to menu planning and meal service where participants are offered all of the components of the meal pattern but are not required to take all of them. OVS can help teach children to make choices and is a way to decrease food waste because participants choose only those foods they wish to eat. A School Food Authority (SFA) may choose to follow the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) meal pattern, including the OVS requirements, or the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) meal pattern.

Assistance with meal selection may be necessary in order to provide well-balanced meals. Participants are not required to decline foods that are offered, but may do so if they choose. OVS is not considered appropriate for preschool children participating in At-Risk Afterschool programs, as it may interfere with program nutrition goals and the center’s efforts to introduce new foods to children.

The centers must notify the Department of Health and Senior Services-Community Food and Nutrition Assistance (DHSS-CFNA) for approval to use OVS. The center’s option to participate in OVS must be noted on their application. This includes an SFA following the OVS requirements for the NSLP and/or SBP. The DHSS-CFNA must also be notified if the center changes the OVS option.

OVS at Breakfast

The CACFP breakfast meal pattern requires three food components to be offered: milk, fruits and vegetables, and grains. As a reminder, fruit and vegetables are a combined component in the breakfast meal patterns.

When using OVS at breakfast, at least the following four food items, in the required minimum serving sizes, must be offered:

• A serving of milk.
• A food item from the fruit and vegetable component.
• A food item from the grains component.
• A food item from the meat/meat alternate component, or one additional item from the fruit and vegetable component, or the grains component.

All the food items offered must be different from each other. For example, while a flake cereal, such as bran flakes with raisins, and a puffed cereal, such as puffed rice cereal, are two types of cereals that are not identical, they are the same food item.

OVS at Lunch or Supper

The CACFP lunch and supper meal patterns require the offering of all five food components: milk, meat/meat alternates, vegetables, fruits, and grains.

When using OVS at lunch or supper, at least one food item from each of the five food components, in the required minimum serving sizes, required at lunch and supper, must be offered:

• A serving of milk.
• A food item from the meat/meat alternate component.
• A food item from the vegetable component.
• A food item from the fruit component.
• A food item from the grain component.

Unlike OVS at breakfast, at lunch or supper meals, a child must take at least three food components, rather than three items, to ensure the child takes an adequately nutritious meal. A child must select at least the minimum required serving size of the components for them to be counted. It is the child’s choice to select or decline a food component. At-Risk Afterschool programs may not specify what food components a child must select.

Adequate food and milk purchases will be verified at the CACFP monitoring reviews in compliance with the OVS meal option. The center must demonstrate that it offers all program meal components in the regulatory amounts. If the center is ordering milk based on previous consumption patterns, it should have a plan to ensure that enough milk will be provided should the demand increase for any given day of operation.

The amount of milk purchased should correlate with the food preference of participants who routinely choose to drink milk in the eight-ounce (1/2 pint) minimum serving size offered. It is the responsibility of program personnel to offer milk as a beverage choice to participants, according to the At-Risk Afterschool Food Chart. The At-Risk Afterschool program should document daily portions served to justify that adequate milk is purchased for the number of participants who choose to drink milk. There are 16 eight-ounce servings per gallon of milk.

Share Tables

Sponsors must provide reimbursable meals that meet the CACFP meal pattern requirements; however, children may not always want to consume certain food or beverage items included in their meals. Using “share tables” is a strategy that sponsors of At-Risk Afterschool Care Programs may utilize to encourage the consumption of nutritious foods while reducing waste.

Afterschool care programs may create a sharing table or stations where children may return whole items that they choose not to eat. Unopened, unused, whole food items left on a share table are then available to other children who may want additional servings. Other children may take food from the share table if they want additional servings.

• Sponsors must check that “share tables” are in compliance with state and local health and safety codes first.

Afterschool care programs must follow food safety requirements when choosing to include share tables in their meal service!

Sponsor must establish guidelines for the use of share table or stations:

• Must follow federal, state, and local health safety codes.
• Must establish clear guidelines for food components that may and may not be shared or reused as part of a reimbursable meal.
  • Must be unopened prepackaged items, unused, whole items.
  • Leftover, unopened cartons of milk may be left on the share table but must be held at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below.
• Must supervise the share table at all times to ensure compliance with food safety requirements.
• Promote the share table to children and families and provide guidelines.
  • Display signage outlining the share table “rules.”

For more information, refer to FNS Memo CACFP 13-2016 “The Use of Share Tables in Child Nutrition Programs”. [BROKEN LINK]