Grocery and chain restaurant foods and beverages allowed for sale in Ontario schools: an evaluation against Ontario’s School Food and Beverage Policy

The Ontario School Food and Beverage policy, also known as Policy/Program Memorandum 150 (PPM150), was established in 2010 to promote healthier food choices among children by setting nutrition standards for foods and beverages sold in publicly funded elementary and secondary schools. Schools face barriers to complying with the PPM150 nutrition standards including a lack of human resources, technical tools, and financial means. Therefore, to support school food providers in sourcing foods that meet the nutrition standards in PPM150, this cross-sectional study assessed the alignment of foods and beverages from grocery stores and menu offerings from chain restaurants with the PPM150 nutrition standards. We compared nutrition data for foods and beverages available at grocery stores and menu items available at chain restaurants from the Food Label Information and Price (FLIP) 2020 (<i>n</i> = 35 103) and Menu-FLIP 2020 (<i>n</i> = 18 649) databases, respectively, against the PPM150 nutrition standards. Half of foods from grocery stores (51%) and most from chain restaurants (85%) did not meet PPM150 standards and are not permitted for sale. For beverages, 91% from grocery stores and 98% from chain restaurants are not permitted at elementary schools. At secondary schools, 56% of beverages from grocery stores and 94% from restaurants are not permitted. Findings suggest few foods, beverages and chain restaurant menu items meet the PPM150 nutrition standards, potentially posing an additional barrier for Ontario schools to procure and offer healthy foods to students.