The UK’s largest supermarket chain Tesco is to hand out free fruit to children as part of a four-week trial across fifteen of its stores in Scotland, The Guardian reports.
In an effort to improve the in-store experience for those shoppers with children – as well as, no doubt, in order to score some much-needed PR points as the group comes under intense competition from discounters, the retailer confirmed it planned to put boxes of apples, bananas and oranges at store entrances for parents to give to their children.
The trial, which follows similar and apparently highly successful initiatives at stores in Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire, will take place across Glasgow.
Joshua Hardie, Tesco’s group corporate responsibility director, said the project was also about improving eating habits to make them more healthy.
“As a father myself I know just how much of a challenge it can be to navigate the aisles with hungry children in tow,” he told the newspaper.
“As well as helping make sure children get their all-important five a day, we’re hoping this new plan will help instil some healthy eating habits that will stay with children as they grow up.”
Giveaways gaining ground?
Tesco’s free fruit trial is by no means a first. In June 2015, another UK retailer, Budgens, ran a Free Fruit Challenge backed by a loyalty card scheme.
In Australia, meanwhile, supermarket chain Woolworths is planning to give away fruit for free to children at all 961 of its national stores.
Across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand, Woolworths is understood to be considering a similar scheme after a free fruit giveaway in one of its Auckland stores generated a massive amount of publicity on social media.
And multinational restaurant chain McDonald’s recently took steps to burnish its reputation for healthier food in the UK by launching Free Fruit Fridays, giving away a bag of fruit with every Happy Meal sold on one Friday each month.
Scot free
Tesco’s decision to trial a free fruit project in Glasgow follows a call by the British Medical Association to make fruit and vegetables freely available in all of Scotland’s primary schools.
At the start of 2015, three leisure centres in Leicester, UK, began offering children a free piece of fruit as part of a pilot scheme to encourage healthy eating.
