Charitable Initiative

Great Fruit Adventure

Recruiter Max MacGillivray and dairy specialist Gareth Jones set off from New Spitalfields Market on a pair of BMW F800 GS motorbikes in November, kicking off a four-month journey that will take them from Spain, Morocco and Senegal to South Africa via Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

The duo will be chronicling the story of their journey and the characters they meet via video, social media and blogs, and will be making all the materials freely available to schools to use in educating kids in food and farming when they return. They hope to visit as many as 30-40 farms on their epic journey.

“The whole reason for this is promoting fresh produce to kids and families,” says MacGillivray. “The 5 A Day campaign doesn’t work. We are trying to do something different to educate kids about fresh produce and trying to stop childhood obesity. We also want to educate the children we meet in Africa about farming efficiently for the future.”

The ambitious plan has caught the imagination of the industry, and has already received some high-profile backing from the likes of the Waitrose Foundation and Fairtrade Foundation, as well as overall support from Pink Lady. As well as the primary aim of engaging kids in healthy eating, the project hopes to raise money for three nominated charities – Fairtrade, Marshal Papworth and African wildlife trust Tusk.

The website has already gained over 250,000 views, while the Facebook page has over 100,000 likes. New supporters are regularly coming on board.

Greenvale

Back in June a number of Greenvale staff from our Norwich office took part in the ultimate team challenge and conquered the National Three Peaks Challenge in aid of Cavernoma Alliance UK.

Cavernoma Alliance UK is a little known charity that does great things to support people with this condition. A cavernoma is made up of abnormal blood vessels and can be found in the brain and/or spinal cord and looks like a raspberry.There is no standardised treatment protocol for cavernoma as historically relatively little has been known about the condition.

CAUK was founded in 2005 byDr Ian Stuart. Ian had a bleed from a brainstem cavernoma 20 years earlier and became increasingly frustrated by the lack of knowledge among the medical community of the condition as well as how little support and information was available.

CAUK now has over 1,300 members in the UK and worldwide. They aim to providefree supportand information for all those affected by cavernoma including friends, family and carers. The charity also aims toraise awareness of this relatively unknown condition throughout the general public as well as the medical community.

It was a cause close to the heart of the team that took on the challenge, aiming to raise £7,000 through their justgiving page. The team, which was made up of 12 Greenvale AP colleagues, smashed their target and raised £7,425 – turning their ‘pain’ into a real gain.

Mansfields

In June Paul Mansfield hosted the annual Hospices Challenge Cup fishing competition in aid of local charity Pilgrims Hospices. Employees, suppliers, customers, friends and family, mainly from the Fresh Produce industry, return year after year because they understand the intrinsic role that the Hospice plays in the lives of many people within Kent. The fishing and fun on the day is fantastic but the consistent support we receive can only be achieved because of the excellent cause the Hospice represents. Together we raised almost £12,000 on the day which takes our total after six years to almost £70,000 – equivalent to 3,500 hours of palliative nursing care.

The weather was a typical June day, a mixture of sun, cloud and drizzle. Fishing experts were on hand to assist the competitors and children encouraged to take part. The children took full advantage of the bouncy castle and everyone tucked into the breakfast baps, hog roast and Mansfields’ own strawberries for lunch with a raffle and memorabilia auction rounding off the day.

Deborah Kellond, Pilgrims Hospices Community Fundraising Manager says: “Six years ago, Paul committed to supporting Pilgrims for life, which he has done in a sensational way. The money donated at this event over the years has truly transformed the lives of those that have received our care, and we are extremely grateful. The day was fantastic once again and a joy to attend; thank you to all the team and sponsors for making the event so successful year after year”.

Nationwide Produce & Three Musketeers

Objectives?

· To promote our Mint brand salad potatoes while simultaneously donating funds to charity

· To increase sales during the campaign and customer retention after the campaign

· To support British farming

· Normal sales would be around 15,000 boxes for this period. We estimated a one-third uplift to 20,000 with the aim of donating £10,000 to charity

· To target two important sectors of the market often overlooked for promotions – wholesale & foodservice.

How was this achieved?

· Nationwide and Suffolk growers Three Musketeers replaced the iconic Mint leaf brand on each box of salad potatoes with a poppy, pledging to give Royal British Legion 50p from every box sold throughout the three-week appeal

· This campaign was promoted by Nationwide’s team of 41 traders throughout Europe, social media, email and text marketing and press releases

· The restaurant community backed the campaign with Michelin-starred chef Mark Poynton championing the cause through Twitter, reaching a further 9,000 industry followers

· The launch of the “Poppy Box” timed to coincide with the release of video recipes by Mark Poynton for British salad potatoes

Results:

· Actual sales were 28,886 boxes, a 93 per cent uplift on normal, resulting in a donation of £14,443

· Customer numbers increased by 22, of which 14 were retained for the remainder of the season

· The main competition for salad potatoes at the time of year comes from the Continent. As a result of this campaign many customers switched to British potatoes.