Avoiding waste with party food boxes for toddlers.

[Meanderingpuppy]

Hi, does anyone have any advice about creating party food boxes for a second birthday party please?

My friend (and a Mumsnetter) did a big party with food boxes for the kids, which i thought she organised brilliantly. She did trays with individual portions of food in. Sandwiches wrapped in clingfilm, veg sticks, mini cheese, fruit, iced gems, juice cartons, etc, all small portions. Each child got an empty box, and went down the line picking 5 items. It meant that they were far more likely to eat everything they picked, and leftovers were untouched, and could be used for packed lunches. It worked so well.

Sorry posted too soon. In particular I am would be keen to avoid excess packaging. Ideally I would just have a colourful cardboard box for each child that they can either take home or we can recycle, but I suppose the individual food items in the box will also need to be wrapped and I am not sure how to avoid waste (especially lots of plastic). Also I don't want lots of packaging that could be a choke hazard for toddlers. Can I just put the items carefully in each box unwrapped? Worried they would get squashed and mashed together!

Maybe we should just go with platters of food, but I thought having a box each would be quicker (so more play time) and also more hygienic. I will have food platters for the adults to snack on, but I trust them to not touch each other's food ect.

Just wondered if anyone had any tips. This is our first toddler and for his 1st party we had mainly adults, so not sure how best to organise the food for lots of toddlers. Thank you so much for any advice.

Ooh thank you @MangoBiscuit our DS will only be 2, so maybe the guests will be too young to select their food like that, but will definitely consider this when they are a bit older. Thank you

Ask parents to preorder sandwiches (ham/cheese/jam). Then every kid will get one they like

At age 2, you'll probably find parents will pick the food up for their kids rather than the kids helping themselves, every kids party Ive been to has been this way until the kids are around 6 or 7.

@PuttingDownRoots really good idea about preorders. Thank you

@DinosaurOfFire that is a good point. Yes the few parties we have been to I picked his food, so maybe a buffet would be fine. Thank you

I bet you get more waste in a box like that - most of them won’t eat half the contents, but you don’t know which half. If you do platters they (or parents) can take what will be eaten.

@Violettaa you are probably right ad there will be more packaging waste. As @DinosaurOfFire says I probably don't have to worry about the hygiene element too much as yet as the parents will help to serve the food (although there will be some older children there too). Might just have platters of food.

Thank you for all of the advice.

@Meanderingpuppy have you had your party yet? If so can I ask what you chose? We're thinking of doing them for our DS 4th birthday as we have a limited timeslot for food but wanted to avoid too much plastic. We're tempted to use paper sandwich bags in the boxes and then putting any fruit/veg sticks on a platter on the table.

@mondler my son's birthday is not for a while so we are still deciding. I think you are right about paper bags. I wondered about wrapping that could composted, as it might be covered in food, so difficult to recycle.

As suggested above for such young children (2 years) I think we might do a buffet still, but your plan sounds sensible to save time when you have slightly older children.

Hope it goes well.