Three dishes the norm for multi-meal mums

Parents making multiple meal options to satisfy family demands around dinner table

• An additional £2,000 a year spent on ‘kid-friendly’ meal options
• Parents dishing up no fewer than three different meals at dinner time
• Ocado launches hunt for kid taste-testers to join food panel and ease meal time pressure

Parents are being forced to create multiple meal options to cater to the daily demands of their families as kids wield influence over what’s served at the dinner table.

The research commissioned by online supermarket Ocado with 2000 parents and children, reveals that despite being time and cash strapped, parents are still spending on average up to an additional £2,000 a year making ‘kid-friendly’ dishes, and find themselves creating multiple dishes at meal times in order to please the entire household.

In addition, parents admit to spending an average of £48 a month on treats for their kids, with over two-thirds (68%) admitting that kids have a huge influence on their weekly shop, dictating what hits the conveyer belt when they get to the till.

According to Ocado’s research, food stress doesn't stop in the shopping aisles.  Over half of parents (56%) say dinner time is an increasingly stressful battleground, with many struggling to get kids to finish meals.  1 in 5 mums admit they dish up no less than three different meals at dinner time, and 43% confess to bribing their children with treats just to get them to finish their meal. Looking to avoid conflict altogether, 40% even choose to eat out regularly to avoid the stress of making multiple meals.

Keen to make the daily grind easier, more than 8 in 10 parents (83%) believe that kids are more likely to eat products they have chosen and 70% have considered turning to online shopping to avoid tantrums in the aisles and the embarrassment they feel in front of other parents.

To help parents and their kids strike a balance and reduce stress at meal times, Ocado is launching a nationwide search for kids to join its tasting panel to enable the online supermarket to stock tasty flavours that will appeal to palates young and old. Budding foodies can apply to join via blog.ocado.com with those selected being invited to join a tasting panel and give products their stamp of approval before they hit Ocado’s shelves over the next 12 months.

Liz Fraser, family expert explained:  ‘The battle to get children to eat what we want them to, when we want them to, has probably existed since cavemen were serving up roast bison. By involving little ones in the food choosing process, and even the cooking, they are much more likely to enjoy and consume what you put on their plate, meaning less arguing at the table, and a reassurance that our children are eating a good, healthy meal.’

Lawrence Hene, Director of Retail at Ocado said, ‘We know that kids are more vocal than ever when it comes to food choices and have often tasted more foods at primary school age than their parents had by their late teenage years. While it’s great that we have a generation of kids interested in their food, we want to ensure that parents are not left battling with them at the dinner table. That’s why we’re opening up our tasting panel to involve kids for the first time, allowing them to give their favourite products a ‘child proofed’ stamp of approval.’

LIZ FRASER’S TOP TIPS FOR PARENTS WHEN TRYING TO CREATE HARMONY AT THE DINNER TABLE

• Having said all that about choice, I do really believe in children eating what they are given, and having to deal with that. I only ever make ONE meal for the whole family, and sometimes they like it more, sometimes less. But that’s all about learning new tastes, and learning to eat things you don’t necessarily love – which is an important skill when they are older. So long as you always try to bear in mind what they like, and factor that in in some way, they should be able to eat some of every meal, and have a health, balanced diet.

TOP 10 FOOD OPTIONS CHOSEN BY KIDS DURING SUPERMARKET TRIP

‍

*Research of 2,000 parents and children by Ocado and ONEPoll, October 2014