Try a little first: Communication strategies for reducing plate waste during preschool meals

Every day in Swedish preschools, food is thrown out due to ´plate waste´: food left uneaten by young children who either didn´t like the food or can´t eat any more.

While research has already established the scale of the problem, knowledge is lacking about the specific practices that contribute to plate waste during everyday preschool meals.

The proposed project aims not only to identify these practices, but also develop concrete training resources that can be used by preschools to reduce plate waste.

The project will use an existing corpus of video-recorded preschool lunches from four preschools in two Swedish cities, and an established collaboration with preschools.

Discursive psychology and ethnomethodology will be used to examine interactional practices in detail, including language, facial expressions, gestures, and handling of food, with a focus on those practices that contribute most to plate waste.

The analysis will examine the practices used to determine how much food is put onto plates, how appetite and preferences are considered, and the handling of leftover food when the table is cleared.

The findings will be used to develop training resources in the form of communication strategies and other educational materials that will be tested and implemented within preschools.

The project will not only contribute to the daily management of food waste in Swedish preschools but also to the international research field of mealtimes within Early Childhood Education and Care.