‘Ideal Meals’ a Hit for Produce for Kids

MATTHEW ENIS

ORLANDO, Fla. — Produce For Kids, a non-profit group here that promotes the benefits of healthy eating and produce consumption for children, is enjoying a lot of success with its new Ideal Meals recipe cards. Launched this spring, the 4-by-6 meal cards offer parents tips for shopping and assembling healthy meals. The recipes all feature fresh produce items from PFK sponsors.

The Ideal Meals displays feature cartoon characters from PBS Kids.

Price Chopper Supermarkets, Meijer, Publix Super Markets, Giant and Martin's Food Stores are all participating in PFK's annual “Eat Smart for a Great Start” fall campaign this year, and retailers told SN that the Ideal Meals cards have been in high demand.

“We've been getting a really positive response from our customers about the Ideal Meals cards,” said Chris Brand, community and public relations manager for Giant and Martins. “They've got some really great ideas about how moms, in particular, can make healthy meals fun for their kids.”

Brand said the cards feature a good mix of information, including recipes and informative tips, such as why it's important for children to eat breakfast before school.

“There's a very nice display unit [for the cards] placed in our produce departments. It's very colorful and fun, and you can see the messaging in regard to [PFK] as well as the beneficiaries of the campaign.”

PFK's annual spring campaign benefits the Children's Miracle Network, while the group's fall campaign benefits PBS KIDS. This fall, 28 fruit and vegetable suppliers have pledged to donate to PBS KIDS based on sales of their products at participating retailers. The program rewards those pledges by identifying participating suppliers with in-store signage, and directing shoppers to those products with the Ideal Meals cards. These partnerships have already enabled PFK to donate more than $450,000 to PBS KIDS, part of $2.5 million raised since 2002 to provide educational content, resources and outreach materials in support of healthy eating to teachers and families.

The Ideal Meals recipes are “really very kid-friendly,” said Maureen Murphy, manager of consumer trends, nutrition and lifestyles for Price Chopper. “There's snacks, there's breakfasts, there's lunches and dinners, and they're all easy.”

Both Murphy and Brand noted that the program has helped supplement existing healthy eating programs that their companies' nutritionists are working on. For example, Price Chopper launched its Kids Cooking Club last year in an effort to help educate kids and parents about healthy eating. By grabbing children's interest with collectible cards and displays that feature PBS Kids' cartoon characters, this program complements Price Chopper's existing efforts by getting kids engaged in the process of shopping for healthy foods, Murphy said.

“It's absolutely important to get kids involved at an early age,” she explained. “We launched our Kids Cooking Club a year ago, and the thought process behind it was to try and encourage children to get interested in cooking at a young age, because when you get them involved at an early age, you're doing two things. You're developing a lifelong skill, which a lot of teenagers and young adults today have no clue about, and you're getting them to try new things when they're young. Chances are, they'll be more accepting later of trying new foods and liking them.”

PFK recently redesigned its website, produceforkids.org, in an effort to become a year-round healthy meals resource for shoppers. Chef Marshall O'Brien, a specialist in healthy cooking, has created a series of short videos on the site, demonstrating how to prepare many of the Ideal Meals recipes. These online resources will complement the special in-store demo days that retailers hosted as part of the campaign.

The Ideal Meals program was developed by PFK as part of the non-profit's effort to gear its resources more toward moms — the primary shoppers in most households — said Kim Lathbury, marketing director for PFK.

“At the beginning of the year, we came to the table and said, ‘What can make moms' lives easier?’” she explained.

The cards “aren't just recipe cards,” Lathbury added. “They include a main dish, a side dish, a dessert and drink, all within the USDA-determined appropriate intake for a [child's] meal. And, they're very easy to make. We try to have them under 30 minutes of preparation time. They really don't require moms to think too much. She can look at the back of the card and see what she needs to buy while she's in the store.”

Ease of preparation is one goal, and ongoing education is the other, noted another PFK official.

“We want to teach people that it is easy to make healthy eating part of their family's daily regimen and stick to a budget at the same time,” Heidi McIntyre, executive director of PFK, said in a release.