Life Time Foundation

Supporting K-12 Schools Nationwide

At Life Time Foundation, a public non-profit, we collaborate with school food leaders nationwide to help them serve healthy, delicious, minimally processed food to kids around the country. We currently partner with more than 3,600 U.S. schools to support 1.7 million children daily. You can find a full list of our partners — including New York City Department of Education, Denver Public Schools and Minneapolis Public Schools — on our website. The movement to provide delicious, nutritious school food across the country is growing. Alongside our incredible partners, Life Time Foundation is proud to work at that movement’s forefront.

What We Do

In partnership with school nutrition leaders, Life Time Foundation helps school districts navigate the many barriers to serving healthy, delicious meals, such as: providing the guidance of registered dietitians, funding culinary training and capital equipment, and helping measure and track progress. We custom fit our relationships with school districts to empower the real heroes, school food professionals, to create long-term, sustainable progress toward a healthier future for the kids they serve.

Ingredient Guide for Better School Food Purchasing & Green Onion

In 2021, Life Time Foundation joined the Ingredient Guide for Better School Food Purchasing collaborative workgroup. The Ingredient Guide is a science-based resource created primarily by school nutrition professionals for school nutrition professionals, in partnership with Center for Science in the Public Interest. The Ingredient Guide provides a resource for school food leaders and manufacturers committed to improving the overall quality, nutritional value and safety of food provided to all students, highlighting unwanted ingredients to eliminate as new food products are developed and modified. The FDA does not have a system to routinely reassess the safety of substances added to food, which is why the Ingredient Guide was created. Life Time Foundation is both a contributor to and advocate for the Ingredient Guide, and our goal is to bring school districts together and decrease the barriers for manufacturers interested in removing ingredients of concern from their products. You can find the full Ingredient Guide and the Quick Reference at www.ingredientguide.org

Green Onion

Green Onion is Life Time Foundation’s free software tool that empowers school districts, purchasing cooperatives and group purchasing organizations to automatically analyze their products for the Unwanted and Watch ingredients in the Ingredient Guide, as well as 600 possible allergens. The tool also allows users to search for alternatives from thousands of K-12 products, export allergen reports and track progress on a personalized dashboard.

Our GDSN Initiative

To supplement their efforts to serve more healthy, nutritious meals, many school districts and food service professionals have asked Life Time Foundation to collaborate with food manufacturers, like you, to advance the Ingredient Guide and availability of foods free of ingredients of concern. As the number of school districts utilizing Green Onion continues to grow, we want to provide them with the most accurate product information to guide their purchasing decisions. For that, we would appreciate your help.

Currently, products are uploaded by users as they create their Green Onion accounts, and, to date, we have more than 6,700 products in our database. As a K-12 food manufacturer, you have access to the most up-to-date information for your products. To equip our food service directors and menu planners with the most accurate information and to ensure we are representing manufacturers accurately to our partners nationwide, we invite you to share that information directly with us. You will have the opportunity to create a manufacturer-specific account in Green Onion, allowing you to review ingredient of concern data on a personalized dashboard.

Steps to Participate

1. Fill out the Life Time Foundation Trading Partner Form (see below)
2. Review the Life Time Foundation Implementation Guide
3. Publish your Product Content to the Life Time Foundation GLN 1200109996061

Data Sync Contacts:

Life Time Foundation
datasync@greenonion.pro

1WorldSync Customer Support
+1 866.280.4013
technicalsupport@1worldsync.com