General FAQs
SNA's 2024 Annual National Conference will take place from Sunday, July 14, through Tuesday, July 16, 2024. Pre-conference workshops will take place on Saturday, July 13. The Exhibit Hall will be open on Monday, July 15, and Tuesday, July 16.
The Boston Convention Center, located at 415 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210.
Top-tier keynote speakers, a diverse offering of 120+ education sessions featuring the hottest topics in school nutrition led by experts, the largest exhibit hall in K-12 foodservice, networking events and closing event entertainment.
Literature displays are confined to booths in the Exhibit Hall. If you are not an exhibitor, you are not permitted to distribute any literature to our attendees. It will be confiscated if we see it in an unauthorized location.
Nutrition School News is an unauthorized publication produced by an outside source. They are not associated in any way with SNA and actively competes for advertising dollars that supports SNA's advocacy, professional development and other programs.
Copies left in the Convention Center or at SNA hotels, as well as advertising counter cards (which are distributed without authorization) in the Exhibit Hall, will be confiscated and discarded. It is our observation that the vast majority of attendees do not read this publication when handed to them in public areas and they typically go into the trash, and we do not recommend investing money into advertising.
To support the Association and its programs that benefit school nutrition professionals, please contact Danielle Baron, VP of Marketing, Communications & Industry Relations, for information about our official ANC publications and future advertising opportunities.
School Nutrition Industry Conference
January 19-21, 2025
Phoenix, Arizona
Legislative Action Conference
March 9-11, 2025
Washington, D.C.
National Leadership Conference
TBA
Annual National Conference
July 13-15, 2025
San Antonio, Texas
Exhibitors and Sponsors FAQs
Your benefits include non-competing exhibit hall time in our two-day tradeshow with pipe and drape for your booth, exclusive exhibit hall time with school nutrition directors, five complimentary hall badges for your staff, access to education sessions, use of the ANC 2024 conference logo for marketing and much more. See becoming an exhibitor for more details.
A wide range of opportunities are available, from providing attendee tote bag inserts to sponsoring networking events. See Sponsorship Opportunities for more information.
For sponsorship opportunities, please email Nita Artis, Business Development Manager, at nartis@schoolnutrition.org. For exhibitor opportunities, please email Crystal Harper-Pierre, Exhibit Sales Manager, at charper@schoolnutrition.org.
Education & Professional Development FAQs
Participants will earn 12.5 CEUs for the live event.
Almost every education session at ANC falls under one of four Key Areas: Nutrition, Operations, Administration and Communications & Marketing. These are designed to help you choose training that best meets your professional needs. In 2015, USDA established minimum Professional Standards for annual training for school nutrition professionals, which must be in any, some or all four of the Key Areas.
A specific education/professional development plan and suggested areas of concentration should be determined with your supervisor or manager. If you and your manager agree on what sessions you will attend, you should be able to meet your annual training hours for 2023-2024 right here at ANC.
All sessions that have a code listed on the training tracking grid count for professional standards AND the SNA Certificate and Credentialing programs. Both programs are aligned with USDA Professional Standards.
SNA is committed to targeting information, programs, and services to the needs of all our members. All SNA members are assigned to a “section” based on your job and membership category. All the section meetings have been designed to bring a key topic to the forefront for all ANC attendees in each of the membership sections. The Employee/Manager Section meeting has always been popular and well attended and the Major City Directors/Supervisors, District Directors/Supervisors, and State Agency section meetings will also include time for discussion on current priorities. The College Section meeting focuses on new research on current topics. We encourage all ANC attendees to attend the section meetings.
All attendees are welcome to choose to attend any section meeting that meets their interest, other than State Agency; only State Agency employees are permitted to this session.
SNA follows the requirements set by USDA for its Professional Standards regarding what can count as training that helps on the job. Offerings such as the general sessions or the wellness event do not count, so we’ve had to adjust our CEU policy.
SNA updates each person’s CEU record with the preapproved number of CEUs for this meeting. Individuals will see the number of CEUs earned and recorded in SNA’s database by going to SNA’s website www.schoolnutrition.org and logging into My Account, and going to My Record. This exceeds the number of annual training hours required for Professional Standards.
We are no longer giving out certificates of completion for SNA sessions. It will, however, appear on your online transcript in approximately 6 weeks. For your own records, you can also use the ANC 2024 training tracker grid to track any pre-conference sessions you attended. RDNs and NDTRs can no longer pick up their certificates from the member services booth. According to the Commission of Dietetic Registration, the electronic training tracker grid is sufficient evidence for RDNs/NDTRs’ Activity Log.
The call for proposals for ANC 2024 will open in September 2023. At that time, visit www.schoolnutrition.org/CFP to fill out the proposal form.
Exhibit Hall FAQs
We anticipate more than 300 companies are exhibiting in 850+ booth spaces.
Rolling carts are a hazard to others who could trip and fall over them.
We’re very sorry, but children under 16 years of age cannot be allowed in the exhibit hall for liability reasons (large equipment, cooking, etc.) This policy is common at many food shows and is for the safety of the children. NO EXCEPTIONS—this is strictly enforced!
You can look up a person to contact via their organization name on the #ANC24 Conference App (once available). Once you have located the person you want to talk to, you can send him/her a private message.
There will be a bulletin board in the Main Aisle where Exhibitors can post winners' names, or you can return to the particular booth awarding the prize. SNA reminds all attendees that they should check with their school and district to ensure that prizes do not exceed the allowable gift amount and should benefit the school nutrition program.
This is scheduled for Tuesday morning from 9:15 a.m.-12 p.m. You must have a Director-type membership category to gain access. State Agency members will also be allowed access. Badges will be checked for admittance. You may bring one manager, but this individual must enter with you at the same time.
Each year, School Nutrition magazine assembles a group of district/school member volunteers to tell us which products on the Exhibit Hall floor were most impressive or intriguing. The results of this peer-to-peer feedback are published in the October issue of the magazine.
School Nutrition Foundation FAQs
The School Nutrition Foundation (SNF) is the charitable arm of the School Nutrition Association, with an independent board of directors made up of school nutrition directors and industry partners.
OUR MISSION: Advancing school nutrition programs by providing resources to school nutrition professionals.
OUR VISION: Well-nourished students prepared for success.
Supporting School Nutrition Program Sustainability
Through collaboration with the School Nutrition Association, allied partners and donors, the School Nutrition Foundation is committed to:
- Identifying and supporting school nutrition research, trends and innovations
- Sharing best practices with the school nutrition community
- Providing scholarships to SNA members for professional development and continuing education
The SNF Annual Fund provides support to the Foundation to provide education, research, and scholarships for SNA members. Contributions are tax-deductible.
SNA-PAC is a political action committee that supports SNA’s political goals by collecting money from people who share these goals and making contributions to political candidates who support these goals. Contributions to PAC are not tax-deductible.
Note: Information is subject to change. For any additional questions, please email meetings@schoolnutrition.org.
