This project will develop and test tools to help food banks and food pantries rank food nutritionally through implementation of the Healthy Eating Research Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System (HER guidelines). The objectives are to: 1) Revise existing SWAP materials to align with the new HER guidelines and develop new materials to complete a suite of tools to help food banks and pantries rank food nutritionally; 2) Recruit eight food banks to pilot test the materials, both within the food banks and within a sample of food pantries in their network; 3) Conduct a process evaluation to measure the adoption, feasibility, and fidelity of the new tools; and 4) Identify challenges and successes with implementation. The tools resulting from this project will be included in Feeding America’s toolkit of resources available to help food banks fully implement the HER guidelines. The subrecipient will produce a website with revised and tested SWAP resources, revised posters and training materials, a readiness checklist, an FAQ document, and a draft report summarizing project findings.
Related Research
September 2021
Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) Toolkit 2021
SWAP was developed in 2016 and revised in 2020 to align with the Healthy Eating Research Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System. Revised tools include: SWAP Toolkit SWAP and Alignment with the HER Nutrition Guidelines SWAP: Overview of a Stoplight Nutrition System for Food Banks and Food Pantries Steps for Getting Started Using SWAP MoreFebruary 2025
More States and Sponsors Are Providing Grab-and-Go Meals to Children during Summer
In 2023, to respond to increased rates of child food insecurity during the summer Congress authorized states to opt in to allowing noncongregate, or “grab-and-go,” summer meal services for students in rural areas. In the summer of 2023, 46 states and DC opted in, and in the summer of 2024 all 50 states and DC MoreJanuary 2025