Posters to Plates: Good for the planet

Posters to plates flyer that students gave to their parents to inform them what they have been learning about and the initiative to increase sustainable food choices.

Research has revealed that the use of information alone has not significantly changed consumer behaviours towards sustainable healthy food options. As part of the AFN Network+ Flex Fund grant programme we were able to undertake research to test visual communication and co-creation to encourage primary school pupils to choose more sustainable food.

Research Approach

Processing art requires part of the brain not normally accessed by typical communications. Creative tasks can facilitate research with populations who are culturally and linguistically diverse and can encourage thinking in non-standard ways, avoiding cliches and ready-made answers. Our approach to this project used a new robust psychology qualitative methodology, visual focus groups (VFGs).

VFGs have been developed in collaboration with the School of Psychology at Swansea University to enable a deeper understanding of consumer acceptance, which helped in providing a stronger youth voice for this research. (Learn more about our collaborative work with Swansea University – Kaleidoscope)

Visual Focus Groups and Design

We ran VFGs with 28 Year 6 pupils at Cwmffrwdoer Primary School in Torfaen, to understand how school meal choices can be promoted to encourage increased uptake of more sustainable options.

VFGs involve a collective drawing task within the traditional structure of a focus group. The pupils were asked to respond to a question. What foods are good for the planet and what foods are bad for the planet?

One of the collaborative drawings from students participating in the visual focus group, answering the question "What foods are good for the planet and what foods are bad for the planet?"

The pupils were highly engaged with the process. Quieter pupils were more involved than usual, demonstrating the benefit of different approaches to communicate sustainability topics.

Inspired by the students’ drawings we worked with a graphic designer (the wonderful Jess Fearnley) to create potential logos.  The proposed logo design choices were shared with the pupils who voted for their favourite. With the logo as the basis, we created posters for the school, flyers for parents and cards to sit next to the sustainable hot meal.

The final designed poster co-created with students and graphic designer Jess Fearnley

Findings

We found that pupils are engaged with the topic of sustainability but better related to the term ‘good for the planet’ more than ‘sustainability’. Co-creation encouraged engagement to aid in educating children about how their food choices can have an impact on the environment.

Initial results from this pilot activity showed a 3% increase in students choosing the more sustainable option. A 3% shift for 5 days out of the 3-week meal cycle would reduce CO₂ emissions by 7 tonnes per year, approximately 1% of the total CO₂ emissions of the meal service.

The Torfaen team has now added the logo to their school menus and put up posters across 27 primary schools. We will be analysing the impact across the primary school estate in the new year after a term of menus that include the visual communication.

The project has provided vital insight to those responsible for school meal menus but can also help to inform food companies supplying the public sector as well as having the potential to use the research findings to develop solutions for the food industry.

Thanks to the amazing team at Torfaen County Borough Council and the fabulous staff and pupils who were extremely engaged in the focus groups.

This project was funded by the UKRI Agri-food for Net Zero Network+