Mr. Mike Neary:

I thank the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs for this opportunity to address it and make a contribution on the topic of tackling childhood obesity and the Food Dudes programme, particularly in the context of the work we do in Bord Bia in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine through the Food Dudes programme, FDP.

Bord Bia is the agency responsible for promoting the consumption of horticultural produce and the marketing of Irish food and horticulture. Under its horticulture remit, Bord Bia manages and oversees implementation of the Food Dudes programme. This is led by myself in my role as director of meat and horticulture in Bord Bia. While the specific task of tackling obesity is not within the remit of Bord Bia, it is widely accepted that a healthy balanced diet with fruit and vegetables at its core is a key contributor in reducing and minimising obesity levels. As such the Food Dudes programme can play a role in supporting programmes aimed specifically at obesity, such as the Healthy Ireland schools initiatives.

The Food Dudes programme is an evidence-based, incentivised behaviour changing programme which was developed by Professor Fergus Lowe in Bangor University in Wales and aims to encourage increased consumption of fruit and vegetables by primary school children by changing attitudes and cultivating a liking for fruit and vegetables. The programme is managed by Bord Bia and receives financial support from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the European Union through the European school fruit and vegetable scheme.

It is based on three core principles which are called the three Rs which are: repeated tasting of raw fruit and vegetables which cultivates a liking for fruit and vegetables; role models which take the form of cartoon characters called the Food Dudes; and rewards, which are small prizes which incentivise the school children to take part and eat the fruit and vegetables over a number of days.

Through the programme portions fruit and vegetable portions are provided to primary school children over an intervention period of just 16 consecutive school days, which is called phase 1 of the programme. The graph, which is my opening statement, shows the current range of produce currently being provided to children in primary schools.

Supporting materials such as consumption diaries, a DVD of the Food Dude superheroes and some prizes, and there is a graph of these in my opening statement which the committee has. Certificates and school room wall charts are also provided to maintain fruit and vegetable consumption in the longer term. After the initial 16 days of produce delivery, phase 2 of the programme commences, which sees the focus switch specifically to the home and this runs for a number of weeks. This is where the parents become heavily involved. It sees children bringing in their own fruit and vegetable portions from home in specially provided Food Dudes lunchboxes which are distributed at the end of phase 1, the first 16 days of the programme.

The Food Dudes Boost programme was introduced in 2015. It maintains all the key elements of the original programme but uses fewer rewards and has a stronger focus on the junior cycle - that is, the new children coming into the school - ensuring that the programme can reach more children in a school year. How the programme is implemented in schools is detailed in my written statement to the committee, which was forwarded to it.

The Food Dudes programme has been evaluated a number of times. All evaluations showed that the Food Dudes programme effectively increased fruit and vegetables consumption among its target group and that a sustained pattern of eating more fruit and vegetables was established among participating school children. The most recent evaluation was carried out in 2016 by an expert team from UCD and evaluated the long-term impact of the programme on schools that participated in the programme as far back as 2010 and 2011. The results showed that the number of senior pupils bringing and consuming fruit and vegetables, remained significantly higher than before the Food Dudes intervention back in 2010 and 2011.

An interesting finding that emerged from the evaluation is that consumption rates were high both at baseline but remained high at follow-up when increased portions were brought. This suggests that the majority of children ate what was provided in their lunchboxes even when additional portions of fruit and vegetables were provided at follow-up. This underpins and highlights the importance of parental influence on children’s eating practices in school.

As part of the EU development of a single school scheme, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has submitted a six year strategy to the EU for delivering Food Dudes through the EU school scheme. The strategy includes a period of pilot testing over the next two school years of some new elements and activities that might supplement the core elements of Food Dudes, which are primarily based around the consumption of produce. In future years, this will include activities such as gardening, healthy eating days or weeks and project work on healthy eating around online activities, sport-linked activities, etc. It is envisaged that the additional aspects will be particularly relevant to senior class children. The prime motivation and criterion of success will remain the increased consumption of fruit and vegetables.