Graphic designer and mother-of-two Jolanda Stokkerman, 52, is based in Belgium. She started out with a view to planning her weekly menus.

“A year and a half ago I started a website about meal prep with five menus to cook ahead for several days,” she says. “Not finding good pictures of the dishes, I decided to design and photograph the plates myself.”

Her children, who were savvy with social media, persuaded her to start an Instagram account for her delightful creations, and the rest is history. Her account, De Meal Prepper, which has 22,000 followers, is a universe of extraordinary creatures, cityscapes, portraits and characters from books, all made out of food.

Each of her plated meals is not only attractive and fun, but also incredibly healthy.

“I get inspiration from everyday situations, cute animals, movies, holidays and pop art,” she says. “A portrait can take anything from two to four hours depending on the subject. The time spent includes the preparation of the food. The ingredients also determine the time it takes – for example, cauliflower purée is more difficult to make than just rice.

“Sometimes the ingredients I have at hand inspire a subject, too. I try to get creative with the ingredients – from rice and yogurt to mashed potatoes, all kinds of vegetables and fruits. I use spices, tomato sauce and natural colouring to bring in colour into my pictures.”

Her Instagram account has brought her work, she says. “Besides workshops and demos, I also do commissions for companies and make food art plates for social media and advertising. My kids are young adults now – 16 and 20 – but like other kids have their food dislikes. They hate mushrooms, for example!”

Beau Coffron, 43, is a father based in Oklahoma City in the United States with children aged 14, 10 and six. His edible art uses healthy food ingredients, cut into all sorts of creative shapes. His Instagram account Lunchbox Dad is a visual delight and has 40,000 followers.

Popular children’s movies, books and shows come alive through his bento-style lunchboxes, which he has been creating for 10 years. From a Marge Simpson made of Cheddar cheese, raisins and raspberries to a Mickey and Minnie Mouse lunchbox and a Halloween graveyard meal, his account is a source of inspiration to many parents who pack meals for their kids on a daily basis.

“I mostly get my inspiration from what the kids are reading and watching,” Coffron says. “This changes all the time, so I get fresh inspiration on a regular basis. My most favourite lunch that I’ve made is my Chewbacca lunch from Star Wars, that I made using wheat bread, peanut butter, hazelnut spread, blackberries and banana.

“The fun food art lunches are a great way to introduce them to new food. These lunches are only once a week and they get regular meals the rest of the week like a sandwich, yogurt and fruit on the side. On average it takes 30 minutes to make a lunch. We make sure that the kids need to at least try all the food that we serve and then I modify each kid’s lunch to make sure that there are at least a few things that they will enjoy.”

Even though the pandemic means the children are going to school less often, Coffron continues to prepare the whimsical lunches.

“With the pandemic, going to school became infrequent, but even if they are at home I try to make them lunches either on plates or in their lunchboxes as it makes it easier to manage at lunchtime. It’s something that brings us closer, have fun as a family and gives us things to talk about after school,” he says.

Japanese mothers are some of the most creative with their bento boxes, and children given special meals are the envy of their lunchroom schoolmates when they reveal what has been prepared for them. The art is called kyaraben – short for “character bento” – where boxed lunches are creatively designed to be delicious and eye-catching, resembling everything from pop culture characters to animals and plants.

Rice balls are shaped like animals, vegetables in the form of flowers, sausages cut so they look like tiny, smiling octopuses – even fried eggs are shaped like cartoon characters.

Etoni Mama, with the Instagram name etn.co_mam (“etn” is an acronym of her three daughters’ names: Eko, Toko and Niko), has a remarkable 166,000 followers. She is particularly famous for her egg creations, where she uses the egg yolk for the main body of the design and other ingredients like ham, seaweed and veggies to complete the image of characters such as Winnie the Pooh or mermaids.

Artsy Malaysian mom Samantha Lee began making her creative pop-culture-inspired lunches in 2008 when pregnant with her second daughter to persuade her eldest daughter to eat independently. Today her daughters are 11 and 13 and her Instagram account (leesamantha), with 606,000 followers, has catapulted her to internet fame.

From Little Red Riding Hood and the wicked wolf (made with bread, blueberries, toasted almonds, jam, cream cheese and peanut butter) to Fred Flintstone (made from rice balls, omelette, seaweed, broccoli and cheese), her plated meals for her two daughters explore themes including fairy tales, cartoons and pop culture.

“I find inspiration from friends, family and jot down my ideas in a journal. Bookstores are also great places for new ideas and themes,” she says.

“A plate of food art would take about one or 1.5 hours from scratch – three dishes, one soup with a cute-shaped onigiri,” Lee adds. “I love all my creations, but if I have to pick and choose I would say my best creations are the Halloween series.”

Lee’s imagination and artistic meals have paved the way for partnerships with brands like HP, the Food Network and Unilever, where she promotes and builds brand awareness.