Right, here’s an idea. A half-baked one, admittedly, but nevertheless the germ of what I suppose someone might turn into a fully formed concept. This industry’s biggest challenge, it would seem, is bringing consistently high-quality products to market and, at the same time, raising awareness of those products so they sell like hot cakes. (I checked that metaphor by the way and was surprised to find it works in quite a few languages; for those still unsure, it means ‘a lot’.)
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes… What holds us back from meeting that challenge, we are always told, is money – or a lack of it. If only we had the kind of budget that hot cake salesmen had, our fruit and vegetables would simply fly off the shelves. But surely we do have that kind of money to spend? What I propose is that for every kilogramme of fruit or vegetables sold in the EU, the European Commission takes €0.01 and puts it in an account. By a rough estimate, we sell a combined total of over 100m tonnes of fresh produce in the EU each year, so that would bring in… wait for it… one billion euros!
Assuming my maths is correct and a practical way of implementing such a scheme could be found, half of that money could then be used to sponsor a big global charity and the other half to pay a celebrity with broad appeal, like David Beckham, to tell people how great the charity is and why fresh fruit and vegetables are so good for you. Sales will surely rocket and should the EC match the industry’s contribution, as it does for other marketing projects, then so much the better!
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