Carrot Gustavs Embarks on a Journey of Flavours – Educational Animations Promote Healthy Eating and Respect for Food

How can we explain to children, in an engaging and easy-to-understand way, why it is important to eat a varied diet, make thoughtful choices and avoid leaving food on their plate? As part of the Interreg Central Baltic Programme project “SchoolFood WasteSolutions”, a series of educational animated films is being created in which the main character – the curious and cheerful Carrot Gustavs – invites children to embark on a journey of flavours and look at school lunches from a slightly different perspective.

The aim of the animation series is to present the principles of healthy and balanced eating, the value of food and everyday choices that help reduce food waste in a way that is engaging and easy for children to understand.

Gustavs explores different foods, flavours and healthy eating principles, encourages children to try something new and teaches them to think about how much food they can realistically eat. One of the key messages is simple – take only as much as you can eat, and if you are still hungry, take another helping. Even a small choice at the school lunch table means taking responsibility for your own decision.

The Journey of Flavours Also Takes Gustavs Across Latgale

In his adventures, Carrot Gustavs also visits towns and municipalities across Latgale, connecting the topics of healthy eating and food waste reduction with the local environment, products, people and eating habits.

The animations are therefore not only about what we eat. They help children see the much broader journey of food – from the work of farmers and food producers to the school kitchen, the cook and, finally, the pupil’s plate.

Behind every potato, carrot, slice of bread or other food product are people’s work, time and resources. Farmers and food producers grow and produce food, while school cooks use these ingredients every day to prepare meals for hundreds of children. This means that discarded food is not simply an uneaten portion – together with it, food products, water, energy, labour and money are also wasted.

Respect for food also means respect for the people who have grown, produced and prepared it. This is exactly the understanding that Carrot Gustavs helps children develop from an early age.

Not to Lecture, but to Encourage Children to Make Their Own Choices

Children’s own choices play an important role in the animation series. Gustavs does not teach through prohibitions – he explores, compares, asks questions, tastes and encourages children to think along with him.

Why do we need different colours on our plate? Why is it important to drink water? How do we choose a portion that we will actually be able to finish? How does food affect how we feel and our ability to learn? And what happens to the food we leave on our plate?

These everyday questions help turn complex topics into situations children can easily understand and gradually support the development of habits that can be applied not only in the school canteen, but also at home.

The Animations Are Part of a Broader Effort to Improve School Catering

The animation series is being developed within the Interreg Central Baltic Programme 2021–2027 project “SchoolFood WasteSolutions” (CB0600301). The Lead Partner of the project is the Latgale Planning Region, and the project focuses on finding practical solutions to improve the quality of school catering while at the same time reducing the amount of food waste generated in school canteens.

The project activities go beyond educating children. In pilot schools, work is being carried out on monitoring and measuring food waste, improving kitchen equipment, testing recipes, strengthening the professional knowledge of school cooks and developing solutions that allow pupils to become more actively involved in choosing their meals. The project aims to reduce food waste by 30–50%, while at the same time ensuring high-quality school meals that are appealing to children.

In this process, Carrot Gustavs becomes the project’s ambassador for children – a character who talks about serious issues in a language they can understand.

Because a responsible attitude towards food does not begin at the waste bin – it begins the moment we decide what, and how much, to put on our plate.

Follow Carrot Gustavs on his journey of flavours and discover how many stories are actually hidden in a single school lunch plate!

The project “SchoolFood WasteSolutions” (CB0600301) is implemented within the framework of the Interreg Central Baltic Programme 2021–2027. The Lead Partner of the project is the Latgale Planning Region.