VegKIT project: increasing children's vegetable intake and supply chain initiatives

Thanks to funding from Hort Innovation, CSIRO has brought together researchers from Flinders University and Nutrition Australia to deliver an integrated national approach to improving Australian children’s vegetable consumption, through education of children, training for educators and engagement with industry.

With the goal of increasing children’s vegetable intake, the VegKIT project has mapped out two initiatives that involve the industry supply chain and early primary school settings.

The initiative is developing new ‘vegetable products’ with sensory properties that are regarded as ‘desirable’ for children. These new vegetable food product concepts will be driven by sensory science and take into account children’s sensory preferences, knowledge about liking of vegetables and theories about food preference development.

It’s also creating opportunities in primary schools to improve vegetable consumption through analysis of canteen menus, interviews with canteen managers and intervention to determine whether increasing the availability and type of vegetable products on the canteen menu will increase students’ actual vegetable consumption.

To find out more, visit https://www.vegkit.com.au/about/supply-chain-initiatives/.