The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is excited to be participating in the USDA's Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS). This new program has provided 7.3 million dollars to ISBE, that can be used to purchase local unprocessed and minimally processed food. The LFS program operates through June 30, 2026.
The goal of LFS is to increase the incorporation of locally grown foods from local producers into school meals. Purchasing from local farmers, ranchers, producers & processors helps to build a more resilient local food chain by expanding and strengthening local and regional food infrastructure and markets.
The Illinois State Board of Education approved a purchase of between $2.5 million to $3 million of frozen local ground beef that will be available to any schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) at no cost to the school. ISBE will be utilizing a portion of the remaining federal LFS funds to make a statewide purchase of local ground beef. This local ground beef will be available to both School Food Authorities (SFAs) that are already signed up for LFS, as well as SFAs that are not signed for LFS but that do participate in the NSLP.
More information is coming soon! ISBE will be sending out targeted emails with your SFAs options for participation and once all of the information is finalized we will host an online training. We appreciate your patience as we finalize the specifics of this exciting opportunity and we will share additional information as soon as possible.
