Brussels sprouts are getting a big promotional boost with a campaign that sets out to show they are not just for Christmas.
Arbor is running the initiative which is being funded by Kettle Produce, Manor Fresh and Marks & Spencer. It has been targeting the women’s, regional, national and cookery press with its message - Learn to love a sprout.
The promotion encourages consumers to turn over a new leaf for 2007 and feature sprouts in a New Year detox. “We are focusing on the health benefits,” said a spokesman for Arbor. “Press coverage is starting to come through now in some of the December and January issues and also in the regional and national press.”
Articles and recipes are appearing in Hello magazine, You, Easy Living and Zest and have already featured in the Sunday Post, the Yorkshire Post and the Bournemouth Echo.
Writers are being targeted with a delivery of sprouts-on-the stalk, a CD-rom of recipes and photography, a steamer, and sprouts in a Ferrero Rocher-style chocolate box.
The deliveries - all bound up in festive Brussels sprouts wrapping paper -have caught the imagination of the writers and been well received.
