Testing a food provision and wastage audit protocol (NUTRI_WASTE_ECEC) in early childhood education settings: An equivalence study.

Early Childhood Education and Care settings (ECEC) are important food environments, with young children often receiving approximately half of their daily nutritional needs while in attendance. Previous ECEC research has found poor menu quality and high levels of food waste, which have implications for human and planetary health. A self-administered weighed protocol (NUTRI_WASTE_ECEC) was developed to audit food provision and wastage at both pre-consumption (serving waste) and post-consumption (plate waste) levels. This study examined the accuracy of data collected using the protocol across different administrators. Data was collected within a university food laboratory by a trained researcher and six research assistants (under conditions simulating ECEC settings). Following the NUTRI_WASTE_ECEC protocol, raw and prepared ingredients, and serving and plate waste were weighed and photographed individually. Equivalence testing was used to verify if the mean % difference (and 90 % CI) between the trained researcher and research assistants were within established acceptable margins of variance (± 10 %). Statistical equivalence was observed for weight comparisons of total prepared food served, serving waste and plate waste (all p's < 0.001). For raw ingredients, statistical equivalence was observed for reported weights of most (45 of 54) items (all p's < 0.05). The self-administered NUTRI_WASTE_ECEC protocol is therefore considered to yield equivalent results compared with the trained researcher-administered protocols most commonly used for the measurement of food provision and wastage in the ECEC setting. Future research should focus on user experience, feasibility and utility in different ECEC settings.