Progress 01/01/21 to 12/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences includeacademics in applied economics, nutrition and public policy; policy advisors and regulatory staff in Federal agencies such as USDA, FDA, EPA and HHS and their equivalents at the state and sub-state level; policy makers in Federal, state and sub-state bodies with legislative authority; and practitioners inthe nutrition, food and waste management sector working for public and private organizations. Changes/Problems:While there are no changes to the study, data cleaning took longer than expected do to staffing changes and the inherent intricacy of the data translation process. This caused analyses to occur much later then expected and has slowed submission of resulting manuscripts to peer-reviewed outlets. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Staff were trained in identifying approaches to refine data creation and cleaning workflow when handling materials gathered by research participants who use the FoodImage app. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A pre-print has been posted while final revisions are underway to prepare the manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal outlet. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective: The study evaluated changes in household food intake, the waste of fruits and vegetables (FV), and FV inventories after supplemental produce was provided free of charge and in response to a smart coaching intervention to reduce food waste and replace less nutritious foods with FV. Design: Households measured food intake and waste for ≥3 days before and after intervention. Households were randomized to receive either an intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV or a control intervention. Both groups received free FV and measured FV inventories before and after intervention. Setting: Participants were from the Baton Rouge, Louisiana region and picked up FV at a central location. Participants: 46 adults and their household members. Results: Treatment participants increased intake of fruits (0.33 servings/day, p=0.09) and vegetables (0.50, p=0.01) compared to the control group. All participants reported a decrease in daily total caloric intake (132 Kcal/day, p=0.04), an increase in the number (9.53 events/period, p<0.001) and average magnitude (100.5 g/event, p=0.005) of FV waste events, and an increase in fresh FV inventories (4.31 kg/household, p=0.001) after receiving free FVs. Compared to the control group, treatment participants reported less FV waste during eating occasions (22.2 g/day, p=0.09) and an increase in frozen FV inventories[JA3][JA4] (1.78 kg/household, p=0.04). Discussion:This study was designed to investigate the dietary and waste effects of providing free FV to households as well as the incremental effect of coupling free FV provision with the treatment coaching intervention focused on replacing less nutritious food options with FV while ensuring the free FV were not wasted. The study respondents' pre-intervention FV was about 2.1 servings per day, which is below recommendations. In the absence of the treatment intervention, simply providing free FV did not yield significant changes in FV intake among study participants, though total reported caloric intake did decline significantly (by 133 Kcal/day, or by about 10% of baseline reported caloric intake). Among those who received the treatment (rather than the control) intervention, intake of FV did increase by 0.83 servings per day, with a marginally significant increase in fruit (0.33 servings/day) and a statistically significant increase in vegetables (0.50 servings/day). These values exceed the upper bound of 95% confidence intervals documented in a recent meta-analysis (Jabbari et al. 2024), which identifies an increase in aggregate FV intake by 0.55 servings/day (95% CI: 0.34, 0.77), fruit intake by 0.13 (95% CI: -0.01, 0.27), and vegetable intake by 0.15 (95% CI: 0.09, 0.21). The intervention involved households picking up free FV boxes for three consecutive weeks, which could logically lead to stockpiling. Hence, we measure the impact of free FV provision on the change in household FV inventories. Across both treatment and control participants, there is a statistically significant increase in total (4.89 kg/household, +17%) and fresh FV inventories (4.31 kg/household, +74%) increase over baseline inventories by the end of the study period, but no statistically significant impact on frozen FV inventories. The treatment intervention did yield a statistically significant increase in frozen FV inventories (compared to control) of 1.78 kg/household, representing a 43% average increase over baseline in the frozen FV inventory for treatment households. The treatment intervention had no significant impact on total or fresh FV inventories when compared to the control intervention. The exclusive impact of this intervention on frozen FV inventories aligns with advice given to treatment households that encouraged the freezing of FV received in excess of immediate demand. The treatment intervention provided advice both on how to increase FV consumption and how to avoid FV waste. However, among both treatment and control participants, the study's free provision of FV yielded a statistically significantly increase in the number of FV waste events that involved food preparation and food storage cleanout (9.53 events per reporting period) and in the average discard during each of these events (100.5 g/event), though the increase in FV plate waste was only marginally statistically significant (11.7 g/person/day). The treatment intervention yielded its expected effect with respect to plate waste, with a statistically significant reduction of 22.2 grams per eating occasion versus control participants (a 79% reduction from baseline), but had no significant effects on the number or magnitude of preparation or non-meal discard events compared to the stress management intervention. This mirrors the qualitative pattern of results observed in a randomized control trial reported by Roe et al. (2022), in which the treatment focused solely on food waste reduction and yielded statistically significant reductions in plate waste from all food sources (79%) but no significant changes in preparation or clean out waste events. As in Roe et al. (2022), it may be that it is more difficult for participants to integrate coaching advice into less frequently occurring events. That it, not every meal involves preparation that lends itself to reducing waste, while shopping and storing activities that can precipitate storage clean outs that generate food waste may be less frequent and more variable, making application of coaching interventions more difficult. The frequency and repetitiveness of many meal occasions may also help explain the relative success of this study's coaching advice designed to increase FV intake as most meals may have non FV elements that can be replaced with FVs. Other elements of the study might frustrate attempts to reduce FV waste including that the FV were provided to participants rather than selected by participants. While participant preferences were considered when FV boxes were filled, preferred FVs were not always available, which could exacerbate waste due to some mismatch between preferences and delivered items. Furthermore, the coaching intervention was only 3 weeks, which may limit the ability to change engrained participant habits, particularly as the coaching focus was already split between two outcomes (increasing FV intake and reducing waste). Conclusions. Providing free FVs without additional education does not increase FV intake but does lead to more and larger FV waste events. When coupled with targeted information to improve diet quality and reduce waste, free FV provision can lead to increased FV intake with no significant increase in energy intake or plate waste and smaller increases in the number and magnitude of FV waste events, suggesting that pairing intensive educational efforts with free FV provision is critical to translate program resources into improved nutrition without increasing waste. Cited Reference:Roe, B. E., Qi, D., Beyl, R. A., Neubig, K. E., Apolzan, J. W., & Martin, C. K. (2022). A randomized controlled trial to address consumer food waste with a technology-aided tailored sustainability intervention.Resources, Conservation and Recycling,179, 106121.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2025
Citation:
Roe, B.E., Diktas, H.E., Qi, D., Martin, C.K., Apolzan, J.W. (in preparation). Changes to Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Waste When Households Receive Free Produce. Pre-print Available at: MEDRXIV/2025/326258.
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