Children’s perception of plant-based food alternatives

The development and application of an innovative qualitative mixed method design to investigate children’s perception of plant-based food alternatives and children’s role in the protein transition within the household.

Introduction
The shift of consumption from animal- to plant-based food alternatives will be one of the major food-related challenges in the coming decades, considering the negative impact of animal-based food production and consumption on the environment, animal welfare and human health. Plant-based alternatives have the potential for mainstream acceptance and consumption but will only become part of consumer’s habitual everyday diet when they provide a rewarding product experience and are accepted.

Families could play an important role in the mainstream acceptance and consumption of plant-based alternatives. Food perceptions and preferences of children are of great influence on parents’ food choice and children can have a promising influence on the consumption of plant-based alternatives of the whole family. Attempts to understand consumer acceptance and to direct consumers towards plant-based alternatives has limited potential unless children are convinced to eat those alternatives. As children have a pivotal role as actors of environmental change, starting at the dinner table, a deep understanding of children’s perception of plant-based alternatives is needed to effectively transit from an animal- to a plant-based diet.

Aim
The aim of this project is twofold. The first aim is to understand children’s perception of plant-based food alternatives and the influence of product-related and context-related factors on this perception. The second aim is to develop an innovative qualitative mixed method design for investigating children’s perception in a more accurate and ecologically valid way. Although research has been conducted on adults’ perception of plant-based alternatives, limited research has yet been conducted on children’s perception of plant-based alternatives. Moreover, current research is mainly quantitative in nature, while qualitative research is needed as well to come to an in-depth and detailed understanding about consumer’s perception of this new food category.

Approach
Different traditional and novel qualitative research methods will be combined, applied and evaluated to enhance the effectiveness of qualitative research in understanding children as a target group. The combination of methods is consisting of different innovative elicitation methods, interviews and a generative cooking sessions. Creative activity boxes are send to the children, so they can perform exercises in the home environment to get acquainted with the topic. Exercises for instance include drafting their favorite vegetarian meal or unboxing a box with meat alternatives. Afterwards, interviews will be held in which children’s creations serve as a starting point. Moreover, a cooking session will be conducted in which children interact and cook with plant-based meat alternatives. This combination of methods should be suitable for understanding children’s perception of food products, meeting their competences, communication preferences, and world of experience.