Tailor-made innovation for children with different levels of food neophobia: Co-creating legume-based dishes for the school canteen

Promoting the acceptability of healthy and sustainable dishes in school canteens is crucial to improve the quality of children's diets, which are often hindered by the low acceptance of plant-based foods and individual variables such as food neophobia. The study employed an approach which integrates co-creation and “Jobs-To-Be-Done” (JTBD) framework to design innovative legume-based dishes, as primary sources of plant-based protein, suitable for school service menus tailored to the needs and tastes of children with different levels of food neophobia. Both the final users (children, n = 319, 8–11 y.o.) and the service provider (catering company) were involved in the co-creation process. Hedonic, emotional and sensory responses by children were collected to guide the selection of the most promising solutions. The co-created prototypes were potentially accepted although high neophobic children rated liking lower and used more negative emoji than low neophobic children. One of the prototypes was implemented in the school canteen menu and accepted even by high neophobic children. Results indicated that the adopted co-creation strategy could help mitigate the negative effect of food neophobia on the acceptance of an innovative plant-based dish and to enable the identification of innovative solutions suitable for direct implementation within the regular school menu.