A team from the New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Service has launched a new game, "Market Set Go!," to share food safety best practices with farmers market vendors and provide training materials in a fun way. 

The media production team from NMSU's Innovation Media Research and Extension and Learning Games Lab in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences has designed a tycoon-style game set in a farmers market, where players manage a farmers market and face various food safety challenges. The game was created in collaboration with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and University of Houston. 

"In early 2024, the Learning Games Lab team began working on the design of a game to support essential food safety learning for farmers market vendors. Our goal was to find the knowledge gaps, utilize science-based standards to develop the game, and evaluate the success of the game in providing food safety training," said Matheus Cezarotto, Educational Technology Extension specialist with Innovative Media Research and Extension. 

The goal of the game is for players to understand the risks around their produce and products while they learn how they can reduce the risks with food safety practice; understand the importance of food safety by seeing the connection between not making people sick and the quality of their products; and feel confident about food safety. 

"Vendors at farmers markets, whether they operate on a small, medium or large scale, share a common enthusiasm for their products," Cezarotto said. "In many cases, they are selling family recipes or locally produced goods. Despite their excitement, all vendors offering various products, from fresh items to ready-to-eat products, need training on food safety practices. Research has revealed that vendors claim to understand food safety, but their behavior does not always reflect that understanding, indicating a need for transformative training." 

To be successful in the game, players must manage a market for safety and make a profit. Players can create appealing stands to attract customers, offer various products for sale, act on food safety issues as they arise and use their profits to expand. 

Players can add 10 different food stands, ranging from fresh produce to ready-to-eat products. Each stand brings specific food safety issues and challenges, mapped out with context experts, including personal hygiene, cross-contamination, temperature abuse, and labeling and packaging. Social media-style posts communicate to players when a stand has a food safety issue that needs to be addressed. To solve the food safety issues, players need to solve various mini-games.

To learn more or play the game when it launches, visit http://marketsetgogame.org.  

The full article can be seen at https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-extension-launches-farmers-market-game--market-set-go--/s/5a3ef156-ee10-49f3-91a7-5a1a641fd354