A low consumption of fruit and vegetables is the fifth risk factor. This was said by researcher Herman Peppelenbos of Wageningen UR Food & Biobased research, last Thursday June 9 at the seminar: 'Fresh from Holland – Innovative concepts' during the London Produce Show. Yvonne Vanlier of Greenco, Maarten van der Leeden of Rijk Zwaan and Remco de Boer of Sous Fresh then spoke about practical solutions with which the consumption of fruit and veg can be raised at various locations.
Aldrik Gierveld and Herman Peppelenbos
Nutritional value has to be cheaper
"Consumers don't meet the advised standard of 250 grams of vegetables and two pieces of fruit per day," according to Herman Peppelenbos. This isn't new. Lesser known is that consumers in Japan are advised to eat 380 grams of vegetables per day. "We won't meet the standard by just eating vegetables during dinner," according to Peppelenbos. Yet it isn't hard to get this 250. He showed with photos how you only have to eat 7 snack tomatoes, 1 mini cucumber, 1 mini pepper and 7 carrot balls to reach two hundred grams. As a researcher Peppelenbos likes to show what the nutritional value of certain products are. The assumption of a listener in the room that there are increasing amounts of products appearing on the shelf that don't taste good and therefore contain less nutrients, could neither be confirmed nor denied by Peppelenbos. "But we would like an answer to this. Together with the HAS Den Bosch, we are developing a method with which we can measure the nutrients of products far cheaper than we can now. Peppelenbos also spoke about the research that Wageningen UR is carrying out on the initiative of GroentenFruit Huis in collaboration with the government and businesses are day cares, work, in catering and at high schools. "New concepts, different eating moments, playing to target audiences and 'make it cool' can contribute to a higher consumption."
Making it easier
"Good food does a lot for your body and your health," was Yvonne Vanlier's opening sentence, the marketing manager at Greenco. The company embraced playing into multiple eating moments and developed an entire new concept with which Tommies snack vegetables will take over sport canteens in the coming year. "If consumers can get half of their daily portion of vegetables with 10 snack tomatoes, we want to make it easy for them. Our starting point is: "make it easy, make it relevant, make it more fun and make it available," according to Vanlier. Increasing amounts of sportsclubs want to offer healthy food in the canteen. "We want to help sports clubs reach their ambitions." Greenco also works on the research 'Meeting vegetables' in collaboration with WUR. This showed that offering snack vegetables leads to 30 percent of the daily recommended amount of vegetables being eaten during a meeting if it is easily available. "This is how Greenco contributes to making the Netherlands healthier!"
Sharing content online and offline
Rijk Zwaan supports raising the vegetable consumption in an entirely different way. The company started the online platform 'Love my salad' in 2009. "This initiative started in Australia in 2009. It is now a network of 250,000 active consumers, with content in thirteen languages and over two hundred active bloggers," says Maarten van der Leeder, account manager for Rijk Zwaan. The content is shared through Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and You Tube. There is also a website lovemysalad.com and regular offline events are held. "The platform supplies the necessary information for us. We try to identify what the tomato of the future will look like, for instance. We also believe in connecting and sharing. We would like to offer a platform for every producer or supplier of a good story." In the Netherlands 25 active food blogger receive a box with Rijk Zwaan vegetables and concepts. "They write about the products and this is ready by many consumers. In short a great opportunity for the fruit and vegetable sector to show what we have to offer."
Yvonne van Lier (Greenco) and Remco de Boer (Sous Fresh)
Inspiration for cooks
Sous Fresh, part of the Best Fresh Group, has placed an innovative concept on the market in 2015. The approach is to stimulate the professional chef to use more fruit and vegetables in their dishes. Vegetables are healthy and add colour and flavour. Remco de Boer, director of Sous Fresh, started his story with images of the well known chef Yotam Ottlenghi and chef René Redzepi of the Danish restaurant Noma which has been named the best restaurant in the world multiple times. "Everyone is interested in vegetables and the combination of all ingredients adds a lot of flavour," according to Ottolenghi. Sous Fresh is specialised in supplying the Food Service channel and developed the brand 'Chefs Inspiration' especially for this market, with as an important part of it the Inspiration Box and the use of social media channels such as Instagram.
"Chefs know far too little about vegetables and their possibilities. Every month we create a new inspiration box with surprising fruit and vegetables, recipe ideas and product information. We want to create brand awareness in this way," said De Boer. "Our philosophy is that chefs will use the products in the inspiration box to experiment. Their guests are surprised with tasty recipes and will want to copy them at home. In this way we can contribute to raising the consumption of fruit and veg in the long term."
Maarten van der Leeden, Rijk Zwaan
For more information:
GroentenFruit Huis, Wilma van den Oever
Maarten van der Leeden, Rijk Zwaan
For more information:
GroentenFruit Huis, Wilma van den Oever