Our wonderful community champions are getting behind the Veg Heroes campaign to encourage children to eat their greens.
They've been putting superhero stickers on everything from peppers to butternut squash, setting up displays in stores and local schools and playgroups, offering fresh fruit and veg and handing out activity packs and recipes for youngsters to take home.
The activity is in line with the launch of ITV’s ‘Veg Power – Eat Them to Defeat Them’ campaign and aims to inspire customers with hints and tips on how to use more vegetables in their cooking and nudge them towards making healthier choices.
We’ve created recipe cards and activity packs to capture the children's imagination and help customers see that creating healthier dishes doesn’t mean you have to compromise on taste.
Here's how our stores across the country are getting behind the activity:
Bernadatte Hart, our Motherwell store's community champion, gave these pupils from Glencairn Primary School a behind the scenes tour as part of the activity – and they gave the experience a big thumbs-up.
She said: "The children had a fantastic time tasting new and different fruit and as a special treat they also had a tour of the store and a chat with our general store manager Colette McSorley."
Our Kilkeel store's community champion Stephanie Rogers is getting behind the activity:
Stephanie said: "I had a great morning spreading the message about eating healthily with our fun new Veg Heroes activity. We've put superhero capes and masks on a variety of fresh fruit and veg to catch the children's attention. The kids were so intrigued by the masks and capes and were very keen to go try their own at home. Parents commented on the colourful resources and just loved this interaction too."
Lots of youngsters have been sampling fresh fruit and veg in our stores – like here in our Wakefield store:
Ellen Crooks, the community champion at our Cape Hill store, shared this photo of Axeiyah sampling one of the carrot sticks – one of her favourite snacks:
Lorraine Coman from our Shoebury store says there was lots of interest in the activity in her store.
She said: "A big thank you to everyone who stopped to find out more about our Veg Heroes activity in store. I had a fun time with customers, handing out recipe cards, activity sheets and fun stickers – and there was a great response from the children."
Here's Cathryn Abel, community champion at our Thornaby store, giving out some of the activity packs:
Clare Jones, our Newport Isle of Wight store's community champion, called in at the Isobel Cafe (Pan Together) with her superhero vegetables and activity packs:
She said: "The children there enjoyed colouring in and creating their own superheroes, and eight-year-old Sofia was busy creating a new recipe for our competition. I look forward to seeing it finished!"
Susan Grant from our Longwell Green store and Caroline Canty from the nearby Asda Patchway teamed up to visit The Meadows Primary School in Bitton for a veg and fruit tasting session:
Susan said: "We talked to the children from reception class about the importance of eating five a day of fruit and veg and then the children did some colouring and stickers with the vegetables before we tasted different fruit and veg and the children made fruit kebabs. They all enjoyed the healthy eating school visit and will be making up some vegetable recipes."
