Survey on consumer perceptions, health benefits and preferences of kindergarten and school foodservices in Korea, including related keywords reported in newspaper: a mixed-methods study

Objectives: With the rapid development of social culture, the perception of kindergarten and school foodservice, as well as opinions on its health benefits, has changed significantly. However, research on this topic remains scarce. We conducted a survey in South Korea on consumers’ perceptions, healthiness, and preferences regarding kindergarten and school foodservice.Methods: With the nationwide cooperation of 17 city and provincial education offices, online and offline surveys were conducted targeting the parents of kindergarten and lower-grade elementary school children, as well as upper-grade elementary, middle, and high school students. In addition, keywords in newspaper reports were analyzed using the Big Kinds platform. A total of 532 valid questionnaires were collected, and statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 27.0 (IBM Co.).Results: The average age of the parents and students was 40 and 12.5 years, respectively, with 36.4% of the students attending schools in the Seoul and Gyeonggi areas. The main keywords reported in newspaper articles, as analyzed using the Big Kinds platform, were “eco-friendly agricultural products,” “food ingredients,” “safety,” and “marine products.” The perception of kindergarten and school foodservice was very positive, especially regarding the attributes of safe ingredient use (4.44), menu variety (4.29), cafeteria cleanliness (4.31), cleanliness of plates, spoons, and utensils (4.24), thorough hygiene management (4.2), nutritional excellence (4.24), and support for proper eating habits (4.18). The healthiness of school foodservice was highly rated, although there is still room for improvement in terms of “not serving fried foods more than twice a week”. In terms of preference for school meals, the most preferred items were meat side dishes, followed by chicken, noodles, fried food, beverages, and bread. In contrast, soybean paste soup, vegetables, and mixed-grain rice received relatively low preference.Conclusion: The results described above may be used to develop educational programs or policies that inform students and parents about the goals of school foodservice and help address common misunderstandings.