The majority of school nutrition programs in Virginia serve meals through the National School Lunch Program and are already operating under strict federal nutrition standards, including recently revised meal pattern requirements.  Currently, the federal competitive foods regulations are set to be implemented in July 2014.  These rules mandate nutrition requirements for competitive foods and beverages for calories, fat and saturated fat, sugar and sodium and portion sizes.  These rules apply not only to a la carte foods sold by school nutrition programs, but to all foods sold during the school day.  The federal standards are based on sound science and will be consistent across the country.  This allows vendors to develop products that meet requirements of all school divisions.  Can you imagine needing to develop one product for Virginia, one for North Carolina, etc.?  If Virginia implements separate standards, our programs will potentially be regulated by two different sets of standards for the same food and beverage items.  My recommendation is that the committee make a decision to withdraw the state level requirements knowing that federal rules which will effectively meet the objectives of the committee are forthcoming.