Objective The study evaluated changes in household food intake, the waste of fruits and vegetables (FV), and FV inventories after supplemental produce was provided free of charge and in response to a smart coaching intervention to reduce food waste and replace less nutritious foods with FV.

Design Households measured food intake and waste for ≥3 days before and after intervention. Households were randomized to receive either an intervention to reduce food waste and replace less healthy foods with FV or a control intervention. Both groups received free FV and measured FV inventories before and after intervention.

Setting Participants were from the Baton Rouge, Louisiana region and picked up FV at a central location.

Participants 46 adults and their household members.

Results Treatment participants increased intake of fruits (0.33 servings/day, p=0.09) and vegetables (0.50 servings/day, p=0.01) compared to the control group. All participants reported a decrease in daily total caloric intake (133 kcal/day, p=0.04), an increase in the number (9.5 events/period, p<0.001) and average magnitude (100.5 g/event, p=0.005) of FV waste events, and an increase in fresh FV inventories (4.1 kg/household, p=0.001) after receiving free FVs. Compared to the control group, treatment participants reported less FV waste during eating occasions (22.2 g/day, p=0.09) and an increase in frozen FV inventories (1.8 kg/household, p=0.04).

Conclusions Providing free FVs without additional intervention does not increase FV intake but does lead to more and larger FV waste events. When coupled with targeted information to improve diet quality and reduce waste, free FV provision can lead to increased FV intake with no significant increase in energy intake or plate waste and smaller increases in the number and magnitude of FV waste events, suggesting that pairing intensive intervention efforts with free FV provision is critical to translate program resources into improved nutrition without increasing waste.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

NCT05061888

This work was partially supported by USDA-NIFA (2021-67023-33820) and a NORC Center Grant # P30DK072476 titled Nutrition and Metabolic Health Through the Lifespan sponsored by NIDDK and by U54 GM104940 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, which funds the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the USDA or National Institutes of Health.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The Institutional Review Board of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center gave ethical approval for this work (Protocol: 2021-015-PBRC).

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