The Fresh Produce Consortium has welcomed last week's announcement by health secretary Alan Milburn that the national school fruit scheme and community 5-a-day schemes will receive a further £52million in funding.

'The initiatives taken by government together with the initiatives taken by the produce industry now hold out the prospect of laying the foundation for a long-term sustained increase in consumption,' said FPC chief executive Doug Henderson. 'To be effective, this requires a close working partnership between the produce industry and government. We are confident that such a climate now exists and we look forward to optimising the unique opportunity that this presents to the health of both our children and our industry.' The fresh produce sector in the UK has provided £650,000 of funding through the FPC for the Bangor research project which has developed whole-school intervention to increase children's consumption of fresh produce permanently. This has run in parallel with the development of national school fruit scheme.

In addition the produce industry has sponsored a project at Cranfield University to examine the supply-associated issues relating to the availability of fresh produce in schools.