A new fund has been launched with the ultimate aim of boosting vegetable consumption across the nation.
Backed by celebrity chefs, medical experts, food producers and teachers, Veg Power is setting out to transform children’s current attitudes to vegetables. The marketing fund will use top people in the advertising industry to create impactful, innovative digital campaigns aimed at children.
The launch of the fund, which was created by the Peas Please initiative – a collaboration between the Food Foundation, Nourish Scotland, Food Cardiff and the WWF – comes as alarming new research lays bare the extent of the nutritional crisis in the UK. Some one in three children leave primary school obese or overweight, leaving them at higher risk of developing diet-related diseases such as Type 2 diabetes. Currently 80 per cent of children and over 95 per cent of teenagers do not get enough vegetables, according to Food Foundation figures.
Using simple digital content, the Veg Power campaign aims to inspire children to embrace and love the huge variety of vegetables on offer. The fund will also support and help parents by offering an alternative to the junk food advertising that kids are exposed to everyday.
Campaign managers pointed to the success of the British Summer Fruits advertising campaign – which has helped sales of berries rise from £370 million to £1.26 billion – as evidence of the difference that good marketing can make.
Celebrity backing
The initiative, which is supported by celebrities including Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Dr Rangan Chatterjee and advertising guru Sir John Hegarty, has launched a Crowdfund page appealing to veg lovers, parents, growers and sellers across the UK, with the goal of raising an initial £100,000. The long-term goal is for Veg Power to be sustainably funded by government and the food industry.
Oliver said: 'I'm a parent and like everyone else, I want my kids to have a proper balanced diet, packed full of lovely veg! But we all know that encouraging kids to eat more greens can be a challenge, so we need to get them really excited about veg by celebrating all the beautiful, colourful, fun things you can do with them.'
Fearnley-Whittingstall added: '80 per cent of our children are not eating enough veg and it's impacting their health. There's endless junk food advertising but why aren't we marketing the good stuff to our kids? Let’s do something really amazing. Let’s power up the next generation with vegetables!'
Dan Parker, who is assisting the Food Foundation, is a former advertising executive and knows how to use digital and advertising to inspire people's food choices. Parker, himself a Type 2 diabetic, is planning to use impactful and appealing content to get kids pestering for peas over pudding.He commented: “Advertising works, which is why companies spend so much money to promote their products. People buy happiness not health, so this is no longer about the health message and cartoon vegetables with smiley faces. It’s about making veg cool and contemporary in a way that means kids don’t need to be bribed with dessert to finish their greens”.
