Organisers of the Eat In Colour healthy eating campaign have insisted the initiative has been a success despite pulling the plug due to a lack of funds.
The Fresh Produce Consortium's campaign, which encourages consumers to eat a range of different coloured fruit and veg, came to the end of its first three years this month. With cash for supporting generic fresh produce promotion in short supply, the campaign will continue simply as a consumer website, though organisers have not ruled out expanding it again in future.
The announcement came as Defra launched a Fruit & Veg Task Force to find ways of increasing production and consumption of produce in the light of concerns over obesity levels. The latest available figures, for the year to the end of 2007, show consumers ate 0.5% more fruit but 12% less veg than the previous five-year average.
Eat In Colour led to 500 pieces of media coverage reaching 350 million readers, more than 95 million listeners and 20 million TV viewers, the FPC said.
"When we launched Eat In Colour overall consumption was static and over the past three years we have seen a modest increase," said FPC president Jim Rogers. "The fresh produce industry is under significant financial pressure currently and we appreciate there have been some difficult decisions to make."
Although the campaign was backed by Tesco, Asda and Somerfield as well as producers and wholesalers, it struggled to gain financial support. Less than half the £500,000 sponsorship target was achieved.
Eat In Colour also had to compete for retailers' attention with numerous other healthy-eating campaigns. Asda this week announced it had gone live with a new LazyTown microsite, which will help promote the GreatStuff kids' food range. Asda's association with the TV show kicked off in April, and had been "hugely successful" in promoting produce, the supermarket said.
Branded produce analysis
The Fresh Produce Consortium's campaign, which encourages consumers to eat a range of different coloured fruit and veg, came to the end of its first three years this month. With cash for supporting generic fresh produce promotion in short supply, the campaign will continue simply as a consumer website, though organisers have not ruled out expanding it again in future.
The announcement came as Defra launched a Fruit & Veg Task Force to find ways of increasing production and consumption of produce in the light of concerns over obesity levels. The latest available figures, for the year to the end of 2007, show consumers ate 0.5% more fruit but 12% less veg than the previous five-year average.
Eat In Colour led to 500 pieces of media coverage reaching 350 million readers, more than 95 million listeners and 20 million TV viewers, the FPC said.
"When we launched Eat In Colour overall consumption was static and over the past three years we have seen a modest increase," said FPC president Jim Rogers. "The fresh produce industry is under significant financial pressure currently and we appreciate there have been some difficult decisions to make."
Although the campaign was backed by Tesco, Asda and Somerfield as well as producers and wholesalers, it struggled to gain financial support. Less than half the £500,000 sponsorship target was achieved.
Eat In Colour also had to compete for retailers' attention with numerous other healthy-eating campaigns. Asda this week announced it had gone live with a new LazyTown microsite, which will help promote the GreatStuff kids' food range. Asda's association with the TV show kicked off in April, and had been "hugely successful" in promoting produce, the supermarket said.
Branded produce analysis
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