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Playful Vegetable Placemats

The VeggieMat Interactive Placemat Encourages Kids to Play with Food

— November 6, 2018 — Life-Stages
Getting young ones to eat a well-balanced diet that's full of fruits and vegetables can be a challenge but the VeggieMat is an interactive placemat that aims to inspire kids to discover healthy eating habits through play.

VeggieMat is more than just an easy-to-clean, non-toxic and reusable food-grade silicone placemat—the product has been strategically developed for children between the ages of two and five based on four scientific studies. As such, the VeggieMat acknowledges that colors stimulate interest, play encourages picky eaters to try new things and that "children who help prepare their meals, eat up to 76% more vegetables than those who don’t."

With the VeggieMat, kids can participate in preparing the vegetables, such as washing them and learning about where fresh produce comes from, as well as filling in the designs with fun shapes and identifying different colors.
Trend Themes
1. Interactive Placemats - The use of interactive placemats to inspire healthy eating habits through play can disrupt the traditional mealtime experience.
2. Child-centric Product Development - Developing products specifically for children, based on scientific studies, can disrupt the market and cater to a demographic often overlooked in the food industry.
3. Incorporating Play Into Healthy Eating Habits - Incorporating play into the process of healthy eating can disrupt current attitudes towards vegetables and encourage children to try new things.
Industry Implications
1. Food and Beverage - Innovative products like VeggieMat can disrupt traditional mealtime experiences in the food and beverage industry by introducing new ways of promoting healthy eating habits to children.
2. Consumer Goods - The use of child-centric product development for products like VeggieMat can disrupt the consumer goods industry by catering to the needs of a largely overlooked demographic and developing products specifically for children.
3. Education - Incorporating playful and interactive educational tools like VeggieMat into schools and educational programs can disrupt traditional approaches to teaching children about healthy eating habits.
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