More than two-thirds of U.S. preschoolers attend childcare, where they consume daily meals and snacks. Part of the meal requirements include serving milk. However, up to 40% of the milk served by childcare staff is wasted. Wasted milk has obvious financial consequences, but there are also important nutritional and environmental concerns.

To address these issues, a team of research and Extension staff at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are working with childcare centers to reduce milk waste. The team is developing a toolkit called SmartServe to help early childhood teachers and staff implement food waste reduction strategies in Illinois childcare centers that participate in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). The CACFP is a federal nutrition program that reimburses childcare settings for serving healthy meals and snacks.

“The toolkit will suggest simple steps early childhood educators can take to reduce waste. For example, helping children to serve themselves instead of serving packets of milk or a pre-portioned amount,” said principal investigator Saima Hasnin, Illinois Extension specialist and assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN), part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois. 

“CACFP now requires childcare settings to serve milk for breakfast and lunch. We will investigate what happens when we make it optional to serve milk for lunch and instead add it to the afternoon snack where childcare settings would typically serve fruit juice.”

Hasnin said the project aims to enhance the efficacy of the federal CACFP program by preventing food waste, saving money, and improving the nutrition of children.

The SmartServe toolkit will be made available for childcare educators through Illinois Extension and distributed to interested childcare educators statewide. Hasnin’s co-investigators on the project include Krystal Hodge, assistant professor of FSHN; Rachel Mannen, Illinois Extension nutrition and wellness educator; and Jennifer McCaffrey, family and consumer sciences assistant dean for Illinois Extension.

The team also partners with the Illinois Public Health Institute, Seven Generations Ahead (an Illinois-based non-government organization), and the Child Development Laboratory at the U. of I.

This project was funded by a grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education program (FLW24-008) for a research and Extension project to reduce milk waste in childcare settings. SARE is part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture.