Greenco is working very hard to offer consumers a healthy alternative out of doors as well. This vision has already brought the Tommies snack vegetables into the Dutch train stations, while filling stations and conference rooms are also ‘vegetable-ising.’ During autumn 2015 and spring 2016 Greenco conducted a pilot delivering snack tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers to sports clubs. During the first pilot, fifty sports clubs were supplied with ‘sports vegetables’ for six weeks, this spring a pilot with one hundred clubs lasting eight weeks followed.
With a promotion, presentation material and special packaging of snack tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers made their way into the canteens. “Eventually we want our snack vegetables to be present everywhere. Consumer’s diets have changed; they no longer have three meals a day, they now eat little bits all through the day. You should be able to choose a healthy alternative such as snack vegetables all day long then,” marketing manager Yvonne Vanlier says.
Greenco’s Robert Ketelarij and Yvonne Vanlier during the London Produce Show
“But that is not easy. Having a product in a nice packaging is not enough. You have to remove all barriers for eating vegetables. Healthy snacking should be fun and relevant,” Vanlier said during the London Produce Show, where she showed the concept to an international audience. “Tommies became big with the clown, very recognisable and cheerful, but also a bit childlike. Our ambition is not just children eating healthy, but adults as well. And that we are relevant at multiple moments and in multiple places.”
“Response, also internationally, to our concept has been very good. It is not only the packaging, the complete picture has to be just right. To us, the snack tomatoes with their vitamin C are the agile vanguard, and the cucumbers with their high vitamin K content are the strong defence.”
Up till now, snack vegetables were delivered to sports canteens in North and South Holland and to west Utrecht during the pilot. The goal is to extend the delivery area, although that is still a challenge logistically. “We have taken the delivery into our own hands now, using students. The clubs are supplied every two weeks and orders are relatively small. The product has to be delivered in good condition. That is why we are taking care of it ourselves for now, but we are still looking for a strong logistical partner, who believes in this story and can add value to this concept from his own profession.”