Internationally, nutrition standards for school food have been implemented. Food service professionals are key to their implementation. This mixed-methods systematic review provides an overview of the barriers and facilitators faced by food service professionals when implementing food/nutrition standards and provides an important link between policy and practice. Peer-reviewed and grey literature were searched across electronic databases and public health organization websites. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) was used as a framework in the analysis. Twenty-nine studies met the eligibility criteria. The most frequently cited barriers to the CFIR constructs/subconstructs were linked to the internal school setting. This included staffing, materials and equipment, and funding. Frequently cited facilitators coded to CFIR included external partnerships/connections and staff motivation to implement the standards. Our findings highlight not only well-documented challenges such as funding and staffing but also the novel and pivotal insights from food service professionals that point to practical, systems-level solutions. Researchers and practitioners can utilize the results to devise strategies to heighten implementation, as well as capitalize on factors that aid in the implementation process.
O'Mahony et al. (2025) studied this question.