Failure to launch
The majority of children ages 0–5 consume most of their meals in early care and education (ECE) settings, prompting interest in the nutritional quality of childcare meals and snacks as a vehicle for improving dietary-related health outcomes for this vulnerable population.[1] Our team has identifie...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems
2025-04-01
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| Series: | Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development |
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| Online Access: | https://foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/1358 |
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| _version_ | 1850178097137057792 |
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| author | J. Dara Bloom David Yates Gizem Templeton Emma Brinkmeyer Caroline Hundley |
| author_facet | J. Dara Bloom David Yates Gizem Templeton Emma Brinkmeyer Caroline Hundley |
| author_sort | J. Dara Bloom |
| collection | DOAJ |
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The majority of children ages 0–5 consume most of their meals in early care and education (ECE) settings, prompting interest in the nutritional quality of childcare meals and snacks as a vehicle for improving dietary-related health outcomes for this vulnerable population.[1] Our team has identified central kitchens that serve prepared meals to childcare centers as a potential model to improve meal quality for children, while also relieving childcare providers of the burdens of meal preparation and paperwork associated with federal meal reimbursements, and aggregating local food purchases to create a larger market for farmers than purchases by individual centers. Our team partnered with a funder, a church, and community organizations to attempt a pilot that would replicate this central kitchen model in a rural area. Unfortunately, the pilot project was never fully realized, leading us to conduct a process evaluation to identify the generalizable factors that impeded its success. We identified four key factors, including the underlying power dynamic between the funder and recipient, reliance on a single project champion, lack of buy-in from community stakeholders, and failure to involve the county health department early in the planning process. In this paper, we construct a timeline of the project to help identify key factors that led to the project’s failure to launch, explain our four key findings, and provide a set of recommendations that funders and other communities can take into consideration as they consider the viability of this timely intervention.
[1] We define children as vulnerable based on the fact that they are completely dependent on adults for decision-making that affects their health and well-being, which is especially true for children in the 0–5 age group (Bagattini, 2019).
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-772e0bd90e2a41bdb32799c853878095 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2152-0801 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development |
| spelling | doaj-art-772e0bd90e2a41bdb32799c8538780952025-08-20T02:18:50ZengLyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food SystemsJournal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development2152-08012025-04-0114210.5304/jafscd.2025.142.015Failure to launchJ. Dara Bloom0David Yates1Gizem Templeton2Emma Brinkmeyer3Caroline Hundley4NC State UniversityUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillDuke UniversityNC State UniversityNC State University The majority of children ages 0–5 consume most of their meals in early care and education (ECE) settings, prompting interest in the nutritional quality of childcare meals and snacks as a vehicle for improving dietary-related health outcomes for this vulnerable population.[1] Our team has identified central kitchens that serve prepared meals to childcare centers as a potential model to improve meal quality for children, while also relieving childcare providers of the burdens of meal preparation and paperwork associated with federal meal reimbursements, and aggregating local food purchases to create a larger market for farmers than purchases by individual centers. Our team partnered with a funder, a church, and community organizations to attempt a pilot that would replicate this central kitchen model in a rural area. Unfortunately, the pilot project was never fully realized, leading us to conduct a process evaluation to identify the generalizable factors that impeded its success. We identified four key factors, including the underlying power dynamic between the funder and recipient, reliance on a single project champion, lack of buy-in from community stakeholders, and failure to involve the county health department early in the planning process. In this paper, we construct a timeline of the project to help identify key factors that led to the project’s failure to launch, explain our four key findings, and provide a set of recommendations that funders and other communities can take into consideration as they consider the viability of this timely intervention. [1] We define children as vulnerable based on the fact that they are completely dependent on adults for decision-making that affects their health and well-being, which is especially true for children in the 0–5 age group (Bagattini, 2019). https://foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/1358central kitchencatererfarm to early care and educationchild and adult care feeding program (CACFP)rural food access |
| spellingShingle | J. Dara Bloom David Yates Gizem Templeton Emma Brinkmeyer Caroline Hundley Failure to launch Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development central kitchen caterer farm to early care and education child and adult care feeding program (CACFP) rural food access |
| title | Failure to launch |
| title_full | Failure to launch |
| title_fullStr | Failure to launch |
| title_full_unstemmed | Failure to launch |
| title_short | Failure to launch |
| title_sort | failure to launch |
| topic | central kitchen caterer farm to early care and education child and adult care feeding program (CACFP) rural food access |
| url | https://foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/1358 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jdarabloom failuretolaunch AT davidyates failuretolaunch AT gizemtempleton failuretolaunch AT emmabrinkmeyer failuretolaunch AT carolinehundley failuretolaunch |