How are PCC Kid Picks products chosen?
Our Kid Picks team chooses products from throughout PCC to be tested. From fruits and vegetables to yogurts, crackers and deli salads, we let the kids tell us what they think about what they taste. And we don't just test the easy stuff! We've tested: anchovies and kamut flakes (both passed); Emerald City Salad and all-natural coconut juice (neither passed); and most everything in between. We currently have more than 1,700 approved products in our database.
We do not allow vendors to dictate whether a product is tested — we want our Kid Picks results to be as honest and true as possible. But we do let producers know when one of their products passes, as it helps them formulate new products and encourages them to make products that are "family-friendly".
How does an item pass?
The PCC Kid Picks program uses an analytical methodology known as "binomial distribution" to determine which products receive the Kid Picks label.
The binomial distribution calculates the likelihood of finding a certain number of successes ("likes") as opposed to failures ("don't likes"), in repeated trials.
The criteria for passing a Kid Picks product is that two-thirds (66.7%) of kids trying that product are likely to say "Like," at a minimum confidence level of 90%. This means that if the test of a particular product were done repeatedly, with different groups of kids, 90 out of 100 times (or better) at least two-thirds would say they like the product.
For example, if a product was tested by 57 judges and 45 liked it, in that group only, 79% liked it. The binomial distribution allows the projection of the likelihood of any group of kid judges, and it can be said that, in this example, 97 out of 100 times, two-thirds of any group of kids trying the products will say they like it.