The Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights Act passed in New Mexico in 2017 is strengthened by recently enacted Senate Bill 4.  This legislation establishes universal free meals for K-12 students beginning during the 2023-2024 academic year.  The initiative will cost an additional $30 million annually together with a $20 million allocation to improve school kitchen infrastructure.

Senate majority whip for the state of New Mexico, Michael Padilla who shepherded legislation through the state Senate stated, “Healthy meals in schools lead to healthy young minds in our communities and I am incredibly proud of the partnership we are forging to ensure that every student has access to nutritious meals at schools.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham commented, “Today New Mexico is leading the nation by not only providing free healthy school meals to every student in our state but we are also making sure those meals are nutritious foods that kids want to eat.”

Four states including Minnesota have enacted legislation allowing for free school meals.  This trend that will be extended in coming years creates opportunities for serving eggs at breakfast time and with menu innovations, inclusion of egg products for lunches. This creates opportunities for inclusion of eggs both at breakfast servings but also in various presentations for lunchtimes. The technical and promotional activities of the AEB will be beneficial to the shell egg and product segments of the industry.