The national Salad Bars to Schools (SB2S) initiative is a PSE change intervention designed to provide salad bars to U.S. schools so that every child—from elementary school, to middle school, to high school—has daily access to fresh fruits and vegetables. When offered healthy food choices, children respond by trying new items, incorporating greater variety into their diets, and increasing their daily intake of fruits and vegetables. Through these early, positive experiences, students are better prepared for a lifetime of healthy eating. SB2S was founded by the Chef Ann Foundation, National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance, United Fresh Start Foundation, and Whole Foods Market in support of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Initiative.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance

Intervention Type: PSE Change

SB2S targets children and adolescents grades K-12 in schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program. The program prioritizes schools with high free and reduced rates for funding. Since 2010, the program has donated over 4,600 salad bars to schools throughout all 50 states, giving more than 2.3 million school children access to healthy food every day.

Setting: School

Target Audience: Elementary School, Middle School, High School

Race/Ethnicity: All

SB2S provides salad bar equipment and technical assistance to schools, enabling them to serve fresh fruits and vegetables to school children every day in the lunchroom.

There are many helpful salad bar guides and resources provided to food service staff for free through The Lunch Box: https://www.thelunchbox.org/programs/salad-bars/. These tools and resources address salad bar implementation topics including:

• Why Salad Bars?
• Assessment and Planning
• Training
• Operations
• Salad Bar Procurement
• Marketing Your Salad Bar

Materials available at no cost.

Significant supporting research from both the USDA and public groups has demonstrated that school children significantly increase their consumption of healthy fruits and vegetables when given a variety of choices via a school salad bar.

• USDA Memo – Salad Bars in the National School Lunch Program
• Evaluation of the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools Initiative
• Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools: A Public–Private Partnership To Increase Student Fruit and Vegetable Consumption
• Center of Excellence for Training and Research Translation Evaluation Riverside (CA) Unified School District Farmers’ Market Salad Bar Program

Classification: Research-tested

Based on the SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework, the following outcome indicators can be used to evaluate intervention progress and success.

	Readiness and Capacity – Short Term (ST)	Changes – Medium Term (MT)	Effectiveness and Maintenance – Long Term (LT)	Population Results (R)
Individual		MT1	LT1
Environmental Settings		MT5	LT5
Sectors of Influence	ST8	MT9

The Salad Bar Evaluation Report June 2017 includes a summary of evaluation methods, measurable results, successes and challenges.

Website: The SB2S website (https://www.saladbars2schools.org/) includes information on how to get a salad bar in your school, access to the online salad bar application, information on school success stories and salad bar operations, and helpful salad bar guides and resources for school food service staff.

Contact Person(s):

Allison Johnson

Senior Programs Coordinator

Email: info@saladbars2schools.org

The Chef Ann Foundation

3004 Arapahoe Avenue

Boulder, CO 80303

Phone: (303) 330-6484