Regional Climate Hubs and Restaurants Forecast Exceeds $1.1 Trillion

**Last week marked ten years since the USDA created regional Climate Hubs to help agricultural producers and rural communities make climate-informed decisions.

The Climate Hubs are an important piece of USDA's agenda to address climate change, complementing investments of $19.5 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act to help producers adopt climate-smart practices.

Today, the Climate Hubs form a network of more than 120 climate researchers and communicators across the USDA.

**A dairy checkoff partnership is putting hot chocolate milk into the hands of students during a pilot with a leading school foodservice company.

National Dairy Council and Chartwells K12, which serves more than two million meals daily at 700 U.S. school districts, have launched the Hot Chocolate Milk program in 58 schools.

The pilot, which will run through the end of the school year, features chocolate milk served hot for breakfast and lunch.

**Restaurant sales are forecast to exceed $1.1 trillion this year, marking a new milestone for the industry that will employ over 15.7 million people by the end of 2024.

The National Restaurant Association released its 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry Report Tuesday.

The report finds restaurant operators are cautiously optimistic, with nearly eight in ten predicting their sales will increase or hold steady from 2023 levels.