Food Pantry Client and Staff Preferences for Nutritious no Prep Ready-to-eat Meals

Identifying Food Pantry Client and Staff Preferences for Nutritious no Prep Ready-to-eat Meals Versus Ingredient Bundles as an Effort to Increase Food Security, Improve Nutrition, and Promote Well-being

The specific aims of this pilot study are: Aim 1) To identify whether no prep ready to eat meals (intervention) or ingredient bundles (control) have higher client acceptability, liking, satisfaction, and perceived diet quality ratings. Aim 2) To identify whether no prep ready to eat meals (intervention) or ingredient bundles (control) have higher feasibility ratings with food pantry staff. Exploratory Aim) To identify whether no prep ready to meals (intervention) or ingredient bundles (control) lead to greater improvements in food security, perceived diet quality, and fruit and vegetable consumption.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Diet, Healthy; Food Security
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: No prep ready-to-eat meals; Behavioral: Ingredient bundles (e.g. meal kits)

Detailed Description

To test the first hypothesis, we will use a randomized repeated measures between-subjects design with half of the participants randomized to receive 14-days of no prep ready-to-eat meals (intervention, n=35) and half of the participants randomized to receive 14-days of ingredient bundles (control, n=35). To test the second hypothesis, we will use a mixed-methods approach with food pantry staff (N=15), including questionnaires with fixed and open-ended items on feasibility and satisfaction of each distribution strategy followed by 30-minute semi-structured 1-1 interviews conducted by UT Southwestern study staff.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 85
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Texas
    • Dallas, Texas, United States, 75236
      • Crossroads Community Services

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 18 years of age or older;
• ability to read, write, and speak English or Spanish;
• ability to provide informed consent;
• current or new pantry user at our community partner;
• willing to participate;
• no dietary restrictions, allergies, or sensitivities that would put the participant at-risk of harm from consuming study foods.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Under 18 years of age;
• inability to read, write, and speak English or Spanish;
• unable to provide informed consent;
• not a pantry user at our community partner or uninterested in becoming a pantry user;
• not wanting to participate;
• dietary restrictions, allergies, or sensitivities that would put the participant at-risk of harm from consuming study foods.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Factorial Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: No prep ready-to-eat meals	Behavioral: No prep ready-to-eat meals; Pantry clients will select no prep ready-to-eat meals for up to 14-days' worth of meals for themselves and 2-members of their household using an online food selection platform. The food retailer supplying the meals produces over 70 meals. We have elected to study 14-days of meals to offer clients variety and determine which flavors are most desirable to clients. After ordering, meals will be retrieved from a refrigeration unit, boxed by pantry staff, and brought to the participant to take home. An example dinner is "Teriyaki Chicken with Roasted Potatoes and Broccoli", and an example breakfast is "Omelet with Peppers and Zucchini". Meals can be stored in a refrigerator or freezer and eaten immediately or after reheating depending on the meal and consumer preference.
Active Comparator: Ingredient bundles (e.g. meal kits)	Behavioral: Ingredient bundles (e.g. meal kits); Ingredient bundles will group individual meal ingredients (e.g., chicken, teriyaki, broccoli, potatoes) in a bag or box and pair those healthy food items with a recipe that instructs the client on how to make a healthier meal. Similar to the no prep ready-to-eat meal initiative, clients will select ingredient bundles for themselves and 2-members of their household using the food pantry online food selection platform. The ingredient bundles will closely replicate the no prep ready-to-eat meals.
No Intervention: Pantry Staff Group; They participate in qualitative interviews only. No demographic or other identifiable information from them. They do not receive an intervention. No Intervention Group.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Hedonic Liking of Study Foods	Liking of study foods will be measured by showing the name and picture of the meal or ingredient bundle and asking participants to respond to a hedonic 9-point bipolar scale (this scale does not have an official name or title, therefore, 9-point hedonic liking scale can be considered the unabbreviated scale name). The scale has four measures of liking (6-9) and four measures of dislike (1-4) and a neutral "neither like nor dislike" (5). A higher score = more liking of the food. The average of all hedonic liking ratings for each meal was taken to create a hedonic liking score across meals.	14-days
Satisfaction of Study Foods	Satisfaction items were adapted from previously validated food pantry client satisfaction surveys (e.g., "How satisfied are you with the amount/variety/frequency of food that you and others in your household receive at this food pantry?") (Dunmire M. Level of satisfaction among food pantry clients, staff/volunteers, and directors and its association with client choice in food pantry layouts. South Dakota State University; 2019.). Response options were "Strongly agree" "Agree" "Disagree" and "Strongly disagree". The items were summed to create an Intervention Satisfaction variable with the lowest possible score of 4 if all responses were "Strongly disagree" and the highest possible score of 20 if all responses were "Strongly agree."	14-days

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Perceived Diet Quality	Perceived dietary quality will be measured using a single validated item that asks participants to rate their overall diet quality as "excellent," "very good," "good," "fair," or "poor" (5 = Excellent, 1 = Poor). Perceived diet quality is the scale title.	14-days

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Fruit and Vegetable Frequency	Fruit & Vegetable Screener from the Eating at America's Table Study (EATS) - this is the measure title. Information on how to score the measure can be found at cancer.gov (https://epi.grants.cancer.gov/diet/screeners/fruitveg/instrument.html). The measure is cups of fruits and vegetables per day. A higher number is better.	14-days

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Hollis-Hansen K, Haskins C, Turcios J, Bowen ME, Leonard T, Lee M, Albin J, Wadkins-Chambers B, Thompson C, Hall T, Pruitt SL. A pilot randomized controlled trial comparing nutritious meal kits and no-prep meals to improve food security and diet quality among food pantry clients. BMC Public Health. 2023 Dec 1;23(1):2389. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-17355-3.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): February 12, 2023
• Primary Completion (Actual): April 26, 2023
• Study Completion (Actual): April 26, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: October 20, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 20, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): October 25, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 5, 2025
• Last Verified: March 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Diet quality; Intervention; Food security; Food pantry
• Other Study ID Numbers: STU-2022-0809

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: We will publish the study protocol in a journal willing to publish pilot study protocols. Deidentified data will be uploaded as supplemental files along with manuscript submissions to PubMed.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Deidentified data will be available in January 2024 and will be submitted as supplemental files along with manuscript submissions to PubMed, meaning the data will be available so long as PubMed hosts supplementary data files.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No