Participatory Design Research of Vegetable-based Snack Products with Adolescent Participants

The childhood obesity epidemic is often attributed to the widespread marketing of High Fat, Salt and Sugar (HFSS) foods. Currently, there is a lack of vegetable-based New Product Development (NPD) targeting adolescent consumers. The study aimed to investigate adolescents' willingness to incorporate three vegetables: cauliflower, potatoes and cabbage into vegetable-based snack products. Two participatory design research sessions were conducted with Welsh adolescents aged 12-to 13-years-old (n=41). The adolescents undertook three activities: (1) listing snack products currently eaten; (2) determining foods they associated with cauliflower, potatoes and cabbage; and, (3) designing a new vegetable-based snack product. Abductive thematic analysis resulted in four themes: Taste preferences, commercial branding, convenience, and health consciousness. Developing healthy vegetable-based snack products could potentially improve the dietary quality of adolescents. This is one of the first participatory design research studies to include adolescents in the NPD process for healthy snack products.