New paper: Children as food designers: The potential of co-creation to make the healthy choice the preferred one

Martina Galler (ESR1) recently published an opinion paper in collaboration with her supervisor, Paula Varela and a college from the innovation team, Antje Gonera at Nofima in Norway. The abstract was written for the Creative Tastebuds symposium with the question: “How can our sense of taste save the planet?” and then extended to an article for the symposiums edition in the International Journal of Food Design. The edition is open access and highly recommended consisting of articles around sustainable and healthy eating keeping taste and pleasure in mind.

It’s time to create the future of eating with children

The opinion paper recommends to involve children actively in new product development as food designers or co-creators in order to make the healthy choices children’s preferred ones, because:

• Co-creating food with children has the potential of generating ideas that adult product developers could not develop themselves.
• At the same time co-creation initiatives can empower participating children to find their own way to pleasurable healthy eating thus laying the foundation for change

The paper refers to the urban planning project Cities of children where the interests of children were taken as highest priority for urban development and children were involved in participatory approaches to improve the quality of life in cities. Does Francesco Tonuccis statement: “A city fit for children is good for everyone” apply to the food environment?  Should new product development focus on products exclusively for children or should our food environment try to integrate children’s needs more since we know that children’s taste preferences still evolve, e.g. by observing the eating practices of others?

The opinion paper can be found here. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/ijfd_00015_3

Children, ESR1. co-creation, food design