Contents
- Grab & Go Research at Tottenville High School
- SnaxPo: Snax Expo and Focus Group
- Decal Design from Tottenville High School
Grab & Go Research at Tottenville High School
The Staten Island Child Wellness Initiative wants to bring down the level of childhood obesity by 20 percent by the year 2026. City Harvest and the Citi Foundation want to get healthy grab & go items into delis, corner stores, and bodegas. Why not put the projects together and find out which healthy options high school and middle school students like?
First Project
Five young women at Tottenville High School ran a focus group and taste test on November 26, 2018, looking at grab & go items that might appeal to their peers. They also asked questions about school lunch.
The taste-test items came from Leo's Deli. Here are two favorites,according to the focus group:
The winners: Fruit cups, yogurt parfaits, and avocado and egg wraps.
The students, who are members of St. John University's Difference Makers program, will help promote an online survey to middle and high school students about the food at their local corner stores and at school lunch.
SnaxPo: Snacks Expo and Focus Group
The tables and participants.
SINFI and City Harvest's Healthy Retail group held the Snacks Expo (called SnaxPo for short) on October 9, 2018 at St. John's University. SnaxPo was a lead-in to the Tottenville High School Difference Makers project in November. The goal was to find out which healthy snacks and grab & go items that high school students might like and that Healthy Retail might want to recommend to delis and cornerstores.
Attendees were a mix of St. John's students, Tottenville High School students, SINFI members, City Harvest staff, local seniors, children, community partners, dieticians, and storeowners, 28 people in all.
The group was divided among five tables, on which there were a variety of healthy snacks, donated by their manufacturers or ShopRite, plus grab & go samples from York Street Market.
The snacks on each table.
Healthy snacks:
- Blue Diamond Nut-Thins
- BobbySue's Nuts (various flavors)
- Darious Date Cookies (two types)
- Enlightened Broad Bean BBQ Snacks
- FruitIQ All Natural Fruit Rolls (various flavors)
- Graceland Dried Fruit (various types)
- Nature's Bandits Fruit Stix (various types)
- Sattvida Energy Bites (various flavors, made with dates)
- Skinny Dip Almonds (various flavors)
- Takis, just for comparison--not particularly healthy
York Street Market grab & go items:
- Baked zucchini fritters, harissa, greek yogurt snack box
- Chicken, hummus & veggie snack box
- Fruit & cheese snack box
- Greek yogurt veggie dip
- Large fruit & yogurt parfait
- Egg white wrap
- The best friend (peanut butter, fruit, cheese, egg)
- Tomato cucumber kalamata olive hummus snack box
Results
Each of the products had their proponents, but two had multiple votes.
| Favorite Snacks |
# of Votes |
|
| York Street Best Friends | 5 | |
| Nature's Bandits | 3 | |
| York Street Parfaits | ||
| Blue Diamond Nut-Thins | ||
| Enlightened Broad Bean BBQ Snacks (ShopRite) | ||
| Skinny Dip Almonds | ||
| Fruit IQ Fruit Leathers | ||
| Bean Sprout Snack (ShopRite) | ||
| York Street Olives, Hummus | ||
| Takis | ||
| Bobby Sue's Nuts | ||
| Interesting Agreements | ||
| York Street products! | ||
| Questions | ||
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SnaxPo Insights
Healthy Retail later reviewed the results and the process itself. Here are the insights:
Collecting the overall results.
- Grace (middle-schooler) mentioned that she wouldn’t get a product that her friends couldn’t get—the accessibility is important.
- Parents buy snacks for children and children buy snacks for themselves.
- 6 people feels like a good number per table.
- Bring snacks out in courses.
- Would be good to hear from more retailers.
- Effective to have retailers and taste testers at the same table.
- Retailers looked at the products through a price lens.
- Would have been good to have childcare available when adults were present.
- Felt like people who came are people who are already interested in health and nutrition.
- Could be done at schools, community centers, or Brighter Bites pick-up locations.
- York Street products were most popular.
- Too many snack items [to test--there should have been a more curated collection].
- People have different tastes and preferences.
- For some of the products, people were able to assess if they liked the product just by looking at it.
- Kids tend to gravitate toward familiar products.
- Many of the products there were marketed towards adults.
- It’s helpful and important to give samples of less familiar products.
- Nutritionist need more guidance.
- The kids Rosanna talked to seemed less interested in nutrition.
- Kids seem to care more about taste and satiety.
- Tasting products is fun and attracts people.
- Some store owners may be interested in making fresh grab & go items.
- The venue determined the timeframe (only time that space was available at St. John’s).
- Align questions across all focus groups.
- The rubric was a good tool to engage people.
Omolara Johnson from SIPCW, the evening's photographer, with the thank-you gifts for the participants.
Great Neighborhood Stores and Tottenville High School's Decal Design
In 2017, SINFI and SIPCW wanted to expand the universe of delis, corner stores, and bodegas with which they could work. We wanted to find stores that offered fresh produce, were locally owned, offered healthy and tasty food, were ethnically diverse and authentic, and whose owners and managers loved their neighborhoods and their customers.
To find them, SINFI gave out more than 3,000 postcards asking for nominations of great neighborhood stores to libraries, parks, the ferry terminal, faith-based organizations, hospitals, pantries, and clinics. We also created online versions of the postcard, which students and friends of the Center for Intercultural Advancement at Wagner College translated into Spanish, Russian, and Chinese. See http://surveymonkey.com/r/shopsinfi if you'd like to see them.
Once we found them, though, we needed to let them and their customers know they're "Great Neighborhood Stores."
Students Designed the Decal
Difference Makers is a college-readiness program that teaches high school students about providing service to the community and helps them to achieve their required service hours for high school graduation. Difference Makers is led by Dr. William Reisel, professor of management at St. John’s University.
As part of the St. John’s University Difference Makers program, students in Tottenville High School’s graphic design classes developed window decals for the nominees.
One of the two Tottenville High School teams.
The second team with the window decal.
SINFI members brought the decals to all the nominees, and most of the decals are still up, two years later. Our Facebook
