Build a Foundation

At a glance

Before you implement food service guidelines, it is important to establish a base upon which to build. Key steps are to conduct a baseline assessment, select your setting, identify and engage leadership, and develop a work plan.

Trowel and brick wall icon against yellow background

Building a foundation for food service guidelines

Although the steps to building a foundation for your food service guidelines initiative can be done in any order, it helps to start with assessing your food environment. An assessment can identify settings where applying food service guidelines would be most feasible and impactful.

Once you know which settings to support, you can invite representatives to join your food service guidelines partnership team. You will need a diverse team with a variety of expertise to successfully develop a plan for implementing food service guidelines.

On the other hand, you may already have partners on your team who can help you assess the food environment. Again, the assessment can help identify settings where food service guidelines would improve access to healthier foods. You can still invite more partners to your team as you find that additional expertise in another area would help implement your food service guidelines.

Next steps

Man in cafe doing an assessment.
Conduct a Baseline Assessment of the Food Environment
Tools to assess organizational information and specific foods and beverages.
Cafeteria interior
Select Your Setting
For food service guidelines, consider reach, ease of implementation, and existing policies.
Woman having a video conference call with team members.
Identify Your Team and Engage Leadership
People with various expertise and backgrounds can help implement food service guidelines.
Man and woman meeting in cafe.
Develop a Logic Model and Work Plan
Questions to ask to inform your logic model and work plan. These provide direction for activities.
Icons for the four Building Blocks of Food Service Guidelines. The four icons are 1) trowel and brick wall 2) shaking hands 3) a checklist and 4) a street sign going in three directions.
Food Service Guidelines Implementation Toolkit
Describes how to use the four Building Blocks of the Food Service Guidelines Implementation Toolkit.
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Content Source:
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)