Produced by Jim Prevor's Perishable Experts 2021 December 7th
We have supported Brighter Bites from the very beginning because it attempts to solve problems that most school-based consumer plans fail to solve-a rigorous scientific process that shows the effectiveness of its plans.
Now the research is not over, it is impossible. After all, what we really want to know is not whether a certain plan will affect children during the plan period or even within a short period of time after the plan ends. What we really want to do is to be able to study 25-year-olds and determine whether they were affected by projects such as Brighter Bites when they were young. In other words, whether child intervention will change long-term buying and eating habits.
This is a kind of work that takes decades, but of course, if we don’t start, it will never happen-and Brighter Bites' rigor at the beginning of this year is likely to lay the foundation for great success in the coming years.
There is not much to talk about, but this year, the world has an additional reason to support nutrition programs, not only focusing on providing food, but also providing correct food and diet education.
The statistics are not complete, but if you look at the photos of people who died or were hospitalized due to the new crown virus released by the media, you will find that they are divided into two categories: the elderly and the obese.
I am not a doctor, but my personal response to Covid is to get a full vaccination and focus on losing weight.
If you want to make yourself safer in the face of the new crown virus, government officials are reluctant to emphasize the truth about the new crown virus, that is, personal responsibility for health and other matters is an important standard, which is a serious problem.
There are many policies that the government can adopt, but generally, decisions made by individuals regarding health and fitness have a greater impact.
By exposing poor children and their families to healthy fresh produce, Brighter Bites promotes changes in eating habits to improve the lives of these children and their families.
It is hoped that through several years of research, the plan will achieve such compelling results that public health authorities will hope to provide funds for national promotion.
We asked Mira Slott, a Pundit investigator and special project editor, to learn more:
Shreela Sharma, PhD, RD, LD Brighter Bites Co-founder Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston
Q: Hi Shreela, I’m glad to be able to reconnect for a pre-show speech. Let's talk about all the aspects and impacts of this unique plan and how it aligns with the agricultural industry executives and supply chain partnerships. Ultimately, Brighter Bites aims to overcome the elusive challenge of long-term behavioral changes in agricultural product consumption.
Rich Dachman (CEO of Brighter Bites, former Vice President of Production at Sysco) delved into the challenges the Brighter Bites team faced during the pandemic, and adopted a resourceful, multi-level strategy to ensure that the program continues to thrive and expand as needed The plight of the family’s family is increasing, and its influence is growing. [You can read the full text here: Although Brighter Bites launched the retail voucher program and participated in the Farmer-to-Home Food Box Program of the United States Department of Agriculture, it requires agricultural industry heroes to provide products, distribution, and funding]
Co-founder Lisa Helfman drew you into Brighter Bites when it was founded. You need to adopt a science-based, data-driven approach at its core and run through the entire operation to track and measure the effectiveness of the plan intricately. [Editor’s note: Shreela and Lisa used peer-reviewed research to validate strategies in their exclusive speech at the 2018 New York Agricultural Products Fair: Non-profit organization Brighter Bites uses scientific methods to increase agricultural product consumption and create long-term consumers]
A: Well, maybe we should start with the spirit of Brighter Bites. The mission is to create a healthy community through fresh food. Essentially, this idea evolved from where we live. Child obesity in this country is on the rise. Many people are fighting against chronic diseases. On the other hand, food waste is still a problem. Food Insecurity is also on the rise. So with Brighter Bites, our idea is how we can connect all these points in a way so that we can create sustainable solutions to address food insecurity, improve healthy eating habits and ultimately improve the most vulnerable The health of the population.
The recipe for Brighter Bites is simple. It is the distribution of agricultural products, plus nutrition education, plus what we call interesting food experiences. Once a week, school families will come to pick up their beautiful bags of colorful fruits and vegetables. They can try delicious recipes and obtain educational materials in the form of tools and techniques to learn how to use the products they provide. This happens continuously, 16 weeks in the school year and 8 weeks in the summer. Keep in touch with fruits and vegetables that they may not have before, as well as a lot of fruits and vegetables.
They get an average of 20 pounds a week, that is, 50 servings of agricultural products, 8 to 10 different kinds of fruits and vegetables, week after week.
Q: How important is this continuity in the Brighter Bites equation? Can you talk about the dilemma of changing eating behavior?
A: The theory is how can we flood their pantry with all these fresh produce and make it a part of their lives? Then how do we teach them how to use it at the same time. Especially vegetables, there is something called agricultural threats.
Q: This is an unforgettable phrase!
A: So, how do we uncover the mystery of vegetables for them by really teaching them. How do you clean and store the produce you get, how do you cut and cook it in a simple and simple way, and then make it delicious, because in the end it is the taste that really changes people's behavior. We want people to be excited about the food they are eating. It must be colorful, it must be beautiful, it must be delicious. It must be sufficient, in sufficient quantity, so that everyone can taste it. This is the theory or spirit behind Brighter Bites.
Q: Can you talk about your target group? You are communicating this message through the school and want to reach out to those who are underserved, because this is an important part, right?
Answer: Yes. The plan is specifically aimed at schools that primarily serve low-income communities and children and their families. More than 75% of children in the school participated in the free or reduced price lunch program. They are mainly low-income people, and we know that these communities are struggling with high rates of food insecurity and high rates of diet-related chronic diseases. So, this is our target group.
Question: Can you solve this seemingly dichotomy problem, namely the obesity epidemic and widespread food insecurity? I remember you talked about this phenomenon in an earlier interview. Some of the poorest people are severely malnourished, but also struggle with obesity...
A: I think the challenge of our time is that on the one hand, most of the food we grow is dead in landfills... But on the other hand, we now have 20% to 30% of households with food insecurity. At Brighter Bites, 70% of our households are food insecure, which means that 7 out of every 10 of our households do not have regular access to food. This leads to what we call an eating disorder. Essentially, if you are hungry, then no matter what the quality of the food you get, you will eat it when you get it.
Many foods are not fresh. After dealing with it, this is junk food. Over time, these families will also struggle with chronic diseases. When I talk about chronic diseases, I include obesity because they have been engaged in bad eating habits for a long time now.
In fact, it is interesting to see that children, especially children, do not seem to be malnourished because of obesity, but because of unhealthy eating habits, they are as deficient as malnourished children. Over time, as these children grow up, they struggle with chronic diseases at an early age, such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. We all know that these diseases have an impact on academic performance, health, employment, productivity, and everything else. Has a lifelong impact. Therefore, as a country, it actually makes economic sense to solve this problem in a targeted manner. How can we let our children embark on the right path as soon as possible? This is what we are trying to do at Brighter Bites.
Question: I would like to review the statistics you mentioned about food insecurity in the United States. These numbers sound very high...
Answer: Let me check. Yes, according to data from the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture, before the COVID, our proportion was about 11%, and now the level of food insecurity has more than doubled. During the pandemic, Northwestern University conducted a study that found that food insecurity in the United States affected approximately 30% of the population.
Q: What role does the agricultural product industry play in the structure and mission of Brighter Bites?
A: Yes, it is very important. Using Brighter Bites is essentially what we are trying to do when creating an alternative supply chain framework. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we work with growers, distributors, and the agricultural product industry to help deliver a large amount of excess agricultural products to the communities that need it. most.
What we have done over the years through this program is to cooperate with Sysco Foods, for example, as well as some growers, packers and distributors, Lippman Farms, D'Arrigo Brothers in New York, Hardee's Foods... Brighter Bites may Need to produce and surplus products, our food distributors bring these product trays to our distribution partners. [View the list of Brighter Bites partners here]
Therefore, we do not have a warehouse or a truck. We cooperate with local food banks. We work with local growers and distributors, and then stock the products for us, and then ship them to the school. Therefore, every school will let trucks unload these huge pallets of produce one day a week. Then it is implemented like a school food cooperative. Parents can come in and participate in the bagging and distribution of products with their children. Everyone in the school can participate in the program, including teachers and staff.
Q: How to buy? Is there a lot of people involved, is this a factor in success?
Answer: Yes. This is important because we again hope to create a healthy community. Everyone must feel that they can be a part of it. We hope that the language of health, nutrition and fresh food will become part of their ecosystem. We train teachers to implement nutrition education in schools, so everything that children talk about at home, they also learn in school. We surround children in the same language at school and at home. These are the two main environments where children live. What a novel idea, right?
Finally, it’s the last mile when it comes to getting the product to the families that need it most. For example, we work with grocery retail companies such as Avocadoes from Mexico and HEB. This allows our families to have a broader understanding of the supply of agricultural products in their ecosystems so that they can always consider fresh produce. This is important for behavior change. This is the power of the agricultural product industry, but I have never seen the agricultural product industry truly accept it.
A: I grew up in India and moved to the United States when I was 21. I remember the first time I went to the grocery store and thought I was dead and went to heaven. What impresses me is the aisles of these grains and processed foods and various claimed aisles and aisles. Sugar-free, low-fat, low-cholesterol, or green potato chips with vegetable flavoring are advertised as healthy, but the agricultural product industry is healthy. No other industry has such a requirement. I think this is the power of a healthy dialogue in the agricultural product industry.
We have seen more science in the past five years clearly showing that fruits and vegetables can not only improve health outcomes and reduce the cause and risk of death, but also extend your life expectancy.
Especially for COVID, we know that your immunity and nutrition are closely related. At the same time, no one wants to eat sad salad because it is healthy. This is the focus of flavor and taste and our nutrition education.
When your budget is limited, you won't spend that precious money on things you don't know how to cook, or things you think your family won't like. This is how we must work with our family to uncover the mystery. Brighter Bites provides them with a free trial of 20 pounds of agricultural products per week, as well as tools for experimenting in a fun and delicious way. This is the secret sauce. You have to create excitement and community participation. That's when everyone wants to be a part of it. I can share many anecdotes from my parents because Brighter Bites changed their children's eating habits.
Q: This is a good turning point, because anecdotes may be helpful, but not statistically significant. Let's talk about the data aspect, which is the cornerstone of the program. What have you learned through purposeful and extensive research? How does Brighter Bites' goals match the actual situation...?
A: Yes, the anecdote feels good. As an epidemiologist, Lisa proposed this idea to me. I am troubled by the obesity epidemic, and no matter what method we use to solve it, it seems to be of no avail. Brighter Bites combines this opportunity with education, and in my opinion is a catalyst and game changer for these communities. From an evidence point of view, data-driven and data-informed are essential to us. I like data, but this is not why we collect data. This is because how do you know that you are implementing the plan as planned and that you are actually making an impact. One without the other is not enough. If you do not implement the plan as planned, even if you see the impact, it is not because of your plan.
Q: There are many different variables to consider, right?
Answer: Yes. This is a non-profit academic partnership, such as the partnership between our University of Texas and the Brighter Bites team. We can use our expertise to apply this scientific method to Brighter Bites. This is the same philosophy as our production partners, using expertise.
We have established this data backbone, which is deeply ingrained in everything Brighter Bites does. Key performance indicators run through the entire team, from top to bottom throughout the team. This allows real-time feedback. We now have a lot of technologies that can be used, which is exciting. Why not use it.
We have created these real-time feedback loops, so when the project coordinator finishes the distribution, they know who is here, who is not, and what product is delivered to the family today, a five-pound bag of oranges, a pound of broccoli... …They know how their program is executed. This feedback loop is essential for troubleshooting, resolving any issues, and maintaining program fidelity. If you think of food as medicine, do you take half the dose of medicine every day and then take three times the dose? No, it doesn't work. Your medicine must be consistent, and we treat food as medicine.
Therefore, we want to be consistent in the dosage. This is the fidelity index and strictness we set, because we track the work of our employees in all cities. We delved into our research.
We tracked our families before and after the plan, and compared these results with families who did not participate. Of course, we found that they would eat more fruits and vegetables while participating in the program, but then we followed them for two years to track their maintenance.
Q: What is the result? Can Brighter Bites become a bridge between these families and the supermarket production department to buy more fresh fruits and vegetables? If so, is this limited to the time period during which they participate in the free agricultural product program, or is it a long-term impact that leads to significant behavioral changes in agricultural product consumption... Does your research confirm this phenomenon?
Answer: Yes. You asked the right question, which is why the data aspect of the Brighter Bites formula is so important. We found that these families eat 19 more servings of fruits and vegetables per week compared to when the program started.
Q: How does this compare to the amount of produce they eat during the project period?
Answer: If you think of it as a slope that spans three time points before, during, and two years later, it is a slope that spans all three time points. Honestly, this surprised me.
Two years later, they actually ate more. Children and their parents. Once you have created a demand for the product, and you know that your budget may be limited, you will spend it on things your family likes and want to eat.
Question: Therefore, in addition to helping the lack of services and solving health problems, you have also expanded your customer base in the agricultural product industry and established more demand for agricultural product purchases...
Answer: Yes. From an economic/commercial perspective, this is very important for the agricultural product industry. Although our research focuses on a small sample size of approximately 700 households, if you eat 19 more servings per week and convert it into the total number of Brighter Bites households, then this will be a large amount of retail dollars because they will buy It’s made in the grocery store and certainly not from Brighter Bites. When we serve 22,000 households every week, Rich Dachman provides an estimated retail sales of approximately $5.3 million.
Q: How many families have you been in contact with now?
A: This school year starts approximately in September. We have enrolled more than 27,000 families, with an average family size of about 5 people.
Q: You are building a new market...
Answer: Yes. When we track children, our baseline is that they consume less than one serving of fruits and vegetables a day. Therefore, we are talking about a huge growth potential area. This is my call for action in the agricultural product industry. Literally, you can change their life trajectory and improve their quality of life and life expectancy. What other food can do this?
Q: Can we in-depth research on your peer-reviewed scientific research and how you have these effects... I know we don’t have time to discuss the main body of work in detail here, but I’m very happy to provide a preview of the participants for the New York Show. The exhibition stimulated further discussion.
Answer: Yes, of course, I can provide a complete study for those interested...The way I talk about the data aspect of things, there are changes in personal behavior, and then how Brighter Bites affects schools and families as one all…
From the perspective of the agricultural product industry, we conducted an interesting plate waste study in which we measured the impact. Scrapped editions are a serious problem; the amount of fruits and vegetables wasted on children's plates during school lunches is huge, and you are talking about 80% waste. Literally, this is the money in the trash can. For our work on the plate waste research, we tracked the families who participated in Brighter Bites and those who did not. We objectively measured how much agricultural products these children were wasting on school lunches at four points throughout the school year.
Then we tracked in detail what products the kid ate at Brighter Bites every week... Well, they ate broccoli eight times throughout the school year. What does this have to do with the broccoli they choose and eat at school lunch. Whether to reduce the waste of broccoli. Is exposure important? We believe that exposure is important, but is it really the case?
Q: This is why science-based research is important...
A: Research shows that the frequency of exposure is indeed important. There is a positive correlation between the amount of produce received and the amount of these specific produce that the child eats during school lunch. Apart from exposure, another question we are trying to solve is, does diversity matter? For children, it is true. We found that when children received a specific product and the same product at school, they would match the contents of the bag with the things they chose during lunch, and then determine how much of this food they had eaten. Then we looked at the exposure, the frequency of exposure, and how this relates to the frequency of consumption.
Honestly, we don't know what we will find. But we were pleasantly surprised to see these results, especially vegetables, because fruits are easier to sell, especially for children. Vegetables are harder to sell, we really want to be deliberate.
Question: Deliberately is an interesting point. This is not just about giving away familiar products to children for free. Will the interaction between the education and entertainment components, and the family/community strategy of the Brighter Bites formula affect these results?
A: We have spent a lot of thought on the APP. I would love to hear the opinions of the agricultural products industry, what is your opinion on this. We try to be very family friendly when accessing information. I think this is at the core of connecting with our family and providing them with these tools in the way they want. As a dietitian, I can tell you that unfortunately, many of us will eventually focus on nutrients, vitamin A, vitamin B... However, this is not the way you eat. No one wants to eat salad just because it is healthy. So how do you make it culturally relevant? How to make it delicious? How do you make it fun and appealing to children? How do you pack a healthy and fun lunch so that you don’t eat orange cheetos every day?
Q: With the development of the plan, where will Brighter Bites go in the future? How can the agricultural product industry help move forward?
Answer: What we have learned in the past nine years is to be very, very thoughtful. The team is incredible and passionate. Where we are now, we have a model that can be scaled, and we can quickly scale up through appropriate partnerships. We have many such products, and this is the role that the agricultural product industry can play. We know that there is a need, and we can fulfill our promises on a large scale.
Question: This means that it comes from you, with your professional knowledge and a science-oriented mentality...
A: Ask my friend Rich Dachman. When considering scale, I may be the most cautious and conservative. By the end of the school year, we will reach nine cities. This is an in-depth plan that serves 27,000 households in an impactful way each week. We have learned a lot. Our school has adopted a fairness-based approach, covering a very wide population base, whether you are talking about socioeconomics, race, ethnicity, various types of cities and rural areas. We have a model and we have tried and tested all these aspects...
We are building one or two cities every year. This is good, but the demand is great. We have a successful model that can be expanded. This is what I want to see happen, so that we can serve the family and reach out to them, because many children will not have a second chance.
Q: Does this scale extend to retail? Will you continue your innovative retail voucher program during the pandemic and when schools are closed? Brighter Bites quickly adapted to find alternative distribution channels and established partnerships with retailers, where the Brighter Bites family received vouchers for the same amount of products, which they could use at participating retailers.
A: The coupon program will continue, because one thing we realized during the pandemic is the need for a fair-based approach. How can we reach a wider group of people, because some people may not be able to come to school every week, and the summer will change people’s schedules? The voucher program is another way to reach families who need products. Therefore, we will certainly continue to do so. This is a good partnership with the agricultural product industry. A wrap-around approach can be adopted so that Brighter Bites can start with the school’s family, and then once the Brighter Bites season is over, the family can continue to receive vouchers from the retailer. So, this may be a win-win situation.
Q: You have provided a wealth of information and inspiration to the executives of the agricultural product industry and participants of the New York Agricultural Products Fair. People are very happy to have the opportunity to meet you at the Brighter Bites booth and throughout the show.
Come and participate in this work and be part of the search for a path of progress, which will contribute to the health of the country and create new markets for the agricultural product industry.
You can register for the show here.
If you need a hotel room here, please send us an email.
Check the exhibition website here.
We can answer any questions by emailing us here.
Come and be part of the solution! We look forward to seeing you in New York.
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