AMHERST, Mass. – The food in the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s dining halls is so good that The Princeton Review came back for another helping, choosing the school as the national leader in collegiate dining in the U.S. for a second straight year.

The announcement further cements UMass Dining’s reputation for serving up healthy, sustainable and delicious food prepared by award-winning chefs, says Ken Toong, executive director of Auxiliary Enterprises at UMass Amherst.

The university will be among the schools featured live on NBC’s “Today Show” on Tuesday, Aug. 1 between 9-10 a.m. Chefs Robert Bankert and Anthony Jung are expected to appear.

“We chose UMass Amherst because it offers outstanding academics,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief. “Our selections are primarily based on our surveys of administrators at several hundred four-year colleges. We also visit dozens of colleges each year and give considerable weight to opinions of our staff and our 24-member National College Counselor Advisory Board. Most importantly, we look at valuable feedback we get from each school’s customers—our surveys of students attending them.”

“What an honor,” says Toong. “We are overjoyed about the recognition. Thanks to our hard-working staff and support from our students and the university community. You inspire us every day to create a memorable experience, one meal at a time.”

“UMass Dining’s outstanding food helps make our campus a great place to live, study and work,” says Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy. “We’re very proud of our dining services staff and all they do. They’ve always been No. 1 to us.”

Rankings of the top 20 schools in 62 categories were posted online today at www.princetonreview.com/best382 and will be included in the company’s 2018 edition of The Best 382 Colleges, which goes on sale Aug. 1. The rankings are based on surveys of 137,000 students at the schools in the guide.

UMass Dining is the largest college dining services operation in the country, serving 45,000 meals daily or 5.5 million meals per year. Since 1999, overall participation the university’s meal plan has more than doubled from 8,300 participants to more than 19,200.

A self-operated program committed to providing a variety of healthy world cuisines using the most sustainable ingredients, UMass Dining incorporates recipes from accomplished chefs and nutritionists as well as principles from the Culinary Institute of America and Harvard School of Public Health to its cycle menu. UMass Dining is known for being among the most honored collegiate dining programs in America by many national organizations. For the past seven years, UMass Dining has been selected to The Princeton Review’s Best Campus Food list. Previously, it was ranked No. 10 in 2012, No. 3 in 2013 and 2014, and No. 2 in 2015 and 2016, and No. 1 last year.