School is back in session and, in addition to newly-sharpened pencils, crisp papers and (relatively) clean lunch boxes, there’s a fresh re-start to family mealtimes. The looser schedules of summer have transitioned back to a more structured day, including planned lunches and snacks as well as family dinners.

Sure, there’s something to be said for the lazy days of summer, when you can forage through the fridge and pantry for some on-the-spot meals after a day spent taking advantage of the seasonal weather and its many activities. I’ve been known to pull together a summertime dinner from in-season tomatoes, a hunk of cheese and some grilled chicken leftovers from a weekend cookout.

But this return to school-year normalcy, whether you have young children heading to kindergarten or older teenagers coming home hungry after a long day in school and at practice, is an opportunity to get creative with meals and keep everyone nutritionally balanced.

On that last note, while families are gathering for more regular mealtimes this time of year, they’re also more interested in plant-based eating. According to FMI’s 2019 Power of Produce report, nearly three in four, 73 percent, of shoppers occasionally serve vegetable protein for dinner, such as beans, chickpeas, lentils, legumes, nuts and seeds. Research from Nielsen supports the trend, revealing that sales of plant-based alternatives have jumped 20 percent over the past year alone.

The latest Power of Produce report also shows that Millennial-age consumers — many of whom have young school-aged children — are particularly keen on integrating plant-based proteins, with 83 percent of that demographic reporting that they want to add more of these foods to their meals. In general, 81 percent of shoppers with kids living at home seek to integrate more plant-based proteins into their diets and meals.

Combine the timing of more structured family meals with interest in plant-based eating and you have a veritable bounty of ways to generate interest and sales of produce this fall. September is also National Family Meals Month, another opportune time to provide solutions for meeting consumers’ goals of eating more fresh fruit and vegetables.

The National Family Meals Month campaign from the FMI Foundation has proven effective: according to research from Nielsen and the FMI Foundation, more than half (51 percent) of consumers feel that National Family Meals Month is a good concept. More importantly, there was a 33 percent jump from 2017 to 2018 in the number of people reporting that they are eating together more as a family.

Last year’s winner of the National Family Meals Month’s Gold Plate Awards, the Produce for Better Health Foundation, is working with the FMI Foundation to encourage consumers to make smart food choices that enhance family mealtime while also increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. You can find recipes and meal plans from the PBH Foundation on that organization’s website and social media platforms.

Weeknight family dinners are only part of the opportunity to provide shoppers with produce that fits into their current lifestyles. For instance, many families and extended families still sit down and share a meal on weekends.

I speak from many years of experience when I say that family meal traditions provide ties that bind. My wife has nine sisters, and when we first started dating, I was invited to family dinner every Sunday night. We continued the tradition after we got married, and there were often as many as 20 people at the table. What’s especially rewarding is that my son, who lives in California, with his wife and two boys, has continued the tradition with their own Sunday dinner.

With the approach of the holidays right on the heels of the back-to-school season, families will have more opportunities to share meals together. Here, too, produce shines in traditional favorite side dishes and can move to a center-of-the-plate star as a plant-based alternative.

(Rick Stein is the Food Marketing Institute's vice president of fresh foods)