The outgoing head of English Apples and Pears has called for industry-wide collaboration and greater cooperation with the NHS to tackle the UK’s diet-related health crisis.
Speaking to FPJ at the National Fruit Show in Kent, Steven Munday said “the alternative to prescribing pills might be to eat more fruit”.
“How do we come together and work with government, whether it’s the Treasury or the NHS, to bring down the huge bill that the health service has for Type 2 Diabetes?
“In the fresh produce sector we all do our own little thing, and in some way we’re all trying to do the same thing by saying that what we’re producing and marketing is healthy, but perhaps a combined effort would be more impactful.”
Munday believes more needs to be done by fruit and vegetable companies and retailers to connect with consumers, saying “that link in the chain sometimes gets forgotten”.
“We all have a duty to ensure we educate the consumer and if something doesn’t reach the consumer, why are we doing it?” he asked.
Social media has become an important way of achieving this, with Munday calling for a more image-focussed approach to marketing in topfruit “because that’s how social media works”.
He admitted EAP was still getting to grips with how to best promote the industry through social media, but insisted it was making efforts to switch to a more modern marketing strategy through the launch of its new ‘British’ campaign.
