Food Trooper aims to raise awareness of food waste in kids and promote a long term cultural change in the future generation of consumers by bringing a challenge in the form of a game and providing engaging and fun to use tools that help kids to reflect on food consumption and waste in their own homes, their community and the larger world.

The Food Trooper Smart Tool Kit will be used to drive awareness of food waste at home and also support Food Trooper Challenge where kids will reflect on their own food consumption and waste, and compare that with other kids.

The Tool Kit includes these elements:

Food & Badge Magnets. Kids can categorize the food by its freshness and urgency to be consumed by placing magnets, each representing a food category, in the appropriate badge. A good activity to do with parents.

Eat This Food box for storing leftovers in the refrigerator.

Newsletter with educational and challenge information for kids & parents.

Food journal mobile app, used for the Challenge, where kids will record food that has been wasted in their own home.

Food Trooper baseball cap to encourage a sense of community.

The FOOD TROOPER Challenge

The ‘Challenge’ game will be implemented by an after school program involving kids to reflect on the food they consume and waste during 1 to 2 weeks and comparing their results with their peers, using the food journal in the form of a mobile application. After the game is finished, results will be discussed with reflection by each student.

The kids will be asked to come up with their own solutions on how to best avoid food waste in their home. These will be shared and provide ideas for the next Challenge.

Our solution looks forward, attempting to shape the behaviours and mindsets of our kids, so that they become educated and conscious consumers. We intend to promote a cultural shift so kids grow up with a different mind set: not wasting food for them will be a matter taken very seriously.

Distribution

We are looking into multiple channels to get Food Trooper into the hands of kids: after-school programs, school science clubs, direct to parents, partnerships.

User Journey

1. After school program will receive TOOL KITS to be distributed to kids, including a pamphlet explaining how the challenge works
2. 4th graders will receive THE FOOD TROOPER SMART TOOL KIT from their after school program
3. Teacher will provide background information on Food Waste and talk with kids on how to avoid it in your home
4. The teacher walks the student through the various elements of the Tool Kit that the kids will do at home
5. The teacher explains how the Challenge works.
6. Kids (troopers) bring Tool Kit home. Kids will take a look in the fridge and categorize the food using the badges and the magnets; and use the box
7. To participate in the Challenge, kids will update their waste of food daily through the mobile app, borrowing the phone from their parents (see the screenshots of the app below). Each day, the teacher will provide a Food Waste FACT.
8. Once the Challenge is finished (after 2 weeks), results tabulated and will be discussed in the after school group. Teacher to lead discussion with reflection by each student.
9. The kids will be asked to come up with their own solutions on how to best avoid food waste in their home. The ideas will be featured on the food troopers website.
10. These ideas will be used in the next challenge

Next phase

When kids finish the Food Trooper Tool Kit, there is the potential for them to graduate to becoming food rescuers, partnering with an organization like ZacSnacks in their city.