Revista de Nutrição Rev Nutr. 2022;35:e210265 SCHOOL CAFETERIAS: A CLINICAL TRIAL 1 https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-9865202235e210265 CC BY ORIGINAL 1 Autonomous Research. Av. Independência, 3751, Bairro Vista Alegre, 98300-000, Palmeira das Missões, RS, Brasil. Correspondence to: M BALESTRIN. E-mail: <mari_dalmolin@hotmail.com>. 2 Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Departamento de Alimentos e Nutrição, Curso de Nutrição. Palmeira das Missões, RS, Brasil. 3 Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Faculdade de Medicina, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Saúde da Criança e do Adolescente. Palmeira das Missões, RS, Brasil. Support: Conselho Nacional Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (Process nº 23078.007037/2019-10) and Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (MCTIC) (Protocol nº 442730/2016-0). Article based on the thesis of M BALESTRIN, entitled “Efeito de um programa de intervenção na implementação de cantinas escolares saudáveis: um estudo controlado randomizado”. Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande do Sul; 2021. How to cite this article Balestrin M, Kirsten VR, Wagner MB. Healthy and Safe School Cafeteria Program: a randomized controlled study. Rev Nutr. 2022;35:e210265. https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-9865202235e210265 Healthy and Safe School Cafeteria Program: a randomized controlled study Programa Cantinas Escolares Saudáveis e Seguras: um estudo controlado randomizado Mariana BALESTRIN 1 0000-0002-6038-3854 Vanessa Ramos KIRSTEN 2 0000-0002-6737-1039 Mario Bernardes WAGNER 3 0000-0002-3661-4851 A B S T R A C T Objective To assess the effect of an educational intervention program focused on health risk conditions, based on an assessment of the hygiene and quality of food sold in school cafeterias. Methods This is a controlled, parallel, randomized, two-arm, community study. Public and private schools with cafeterias were invited to participate. This study was conducted in 27 school cafeterias in northern and northwestern Rio Grande do Sul, a state in southern Brazil. Representatives of the school communities in the intervention group received an educational program consisting of 160-hour distance training. The most relevant outcomes were the assessment of the hygienic conditions and composition of the menus sold in school cafeterias. All outcomes were analyzed as intention-to-treat and per-protocol. For the analysis of continuous data with normal distribution, an analysis of covariance and the Generalized Linear Model were used. The level of statistical significance considered was p<0.05 for a 95% CI.