Athletes
Each Olympic contestant has a unique healthy eating plan or diet which will help them deliver the performance of a lifetime. This will be determined by whether they are endurance or an aesthetic athlete. To provide them with the best food when preparing for the games, the athletes have cooks and nutritionists who will give advice before and during the Olympics. Nanna Meyer, senior sport dietitian for the U.S. Olympic Committee advises the speed skaters of the United States. She blogs during her time in Sochi and comments on the food at the Olympics. “The food in Sochi is of very high quality and tastes excellent. Choosing the right fuel and fresh products can be most challenging for some athletes. That is why we give advice and help them out.”
Lamb Weston
Food available to visitors, employees and supporters of Sochi is also required to meet the highest quality standards. Lamb Weston is one of the many companies who are present during the winter Olympics with their high end quality products. Merav Mattijssen, Channel Marketing manager, explains that Lamb Weston had to go through a criteria selection process in order to supply food at the Olympics. “Lamb Weston was chosen to supply premium French fries, wedges and onion rings to local hotels, food stalls and restaurants. Our distributors in Russia worked very hard to achieve this. The caterers for the Olympics are responsible for arranging the food for the immediate area and surrounding villages. It is very important that only the best quality products are served during these weeks. We consistently deliver quality products.”
Food provided by Lamb Weston is consumed by everyone present at the games, including staff member, visitors and players. There are some competitors in Russia, but Lamb Weston exclusively delivers premium products. “McDonalds is one of the official sponsors of the Olympic Games, but McDonalds buys our products. They also buy from our competitors, but when you eat French fries, onion rings or wedges in Sochi, it is likely to be our products.”
KIKU Apples
Some companies are using sportsmen to promote their products. KIKU Apples from Italy is a company that uses athletes for marketing and promoting their apples. Some of their athletes are at the Olympic Games right now. Jürgen Braun, Chief Executive Officer, explains about how they combine the Olympics and KIKU. “We always use sportsmen to promote our brand, but unfortunately, we no longer have brand exposure at the Olympic Games but we are promoting our athletes through our website and social media so we can keep people updated about their performances. Two brothers, Dominik and Markus Windisch, are competing in the Italian national Olympic team as bi-athletes. It is very rare that two brothers are competing in the same sport at such a high level. They are very good ambassadors for our brand.”
KIKU Apples and biathlete Dominik Windisch, athlete of the Italian national team
"The consequences of having a good brand and promoting it with our athletes will hopefully increase our sales, but I can't measure that right now. We want a sympathetic aura around KIKU when it comes to sports and the health benefits of our apples. We do a lot of sports marketing and also we invite the athletes to KIKU events. The Olympics is one of the biggest events where we encourage our athletes and also encourage them to promote our apples while there."
Brage Richenberg, snowboarder at the Olympic Games in Sochi, promoting Joya®
JOYA
Pink Lady Europe launched the brand JOYA apple two years ago. Carine Duthu, Communication manager, explains about the promotion during the Olympic Games and the ambassadors of the JOYA apple. "We have a team of four international riders who are ambassadors for the apple. A kitesurfer, a free rider, a mountain bike pro rider and now we promote the apple at the Olympics with Brage Richenberg, a snowboarder from Norway. We have the brand logo visually present on the helmet and snowboard. JOYA has generated thousands of fans on social media pages and has created a new online game, the JOYA rider game, to promote the apple. Since the launch of the brand the sales are increasing and are very positive. Furthermore, planting plans are under development for the JOYA apple.
