The Great Fruit & Veg Adventure wins the overall Food Marketing Campaign of the Year accolade as part of the Food Matter Live inaugural awards which celebrate the incredible innovation that continues to shape the future of the food and drink industries.
These awards recognise the creativity and inventiveness of industry to produce products, ingredients and marketing that meet the ever-changing demands and palates of health conscious and trend-hungry consumers.
The winners include enterprising food and drink start-ups, challenger brands and high street names – all eager to gain recognition for their success in innovative product development, groundbreaking science and technology, sustainability initiatives, or for packaging design and consumer marketing strategies.
Each received an iconic, unique award – creatively designed around the innovative concept of a taste bud and incorporating the five senses of taste – at a special ceremony hosted by Food Matters Live at London’s ExCeL late last month.
The idea for The Great Fruit Adventure was born several years ago when founder Max MacGillivray wanted to create a buzz and educate children about the health benefits of eating fresh produce.
He embarked on a social media and marketing campaign in the run-up to the expedition, including presenting the bikes at The London Produce Show and built up a buzz and large following for the challenging three-month trip.
The upshot was to travel from London to Cape Town by motorbike visiting almost 50 different growers and farms en route. Having completed the 18,000-kilometre motorbike journey through 18 European and African countries, he is now inspiring thousands of schoolchildren with stories about his adventure.
“Having set up this inspiring initiative to educate kids, their families and schools as to where amazing fresh produce comes from and why it is so good for us all, to receive such industry recognition confirms that we are heading in totally the right direction to answer the obesity crisis…eat more fantastic fresh produce,” said The Great Fruit & Veg Adventure founder, Max MacGillivray.
“Today nearly a third of children aged 2 to 15 are overweight or obese in the UK alone. Six out of 10 children don’t know where fresh produce comes from and 50% of all teenagers never have any form of fresh produce on a daily basis.
“If we can continue our adventure to educate one and all about fresh produce we are very hopefully we can make and create a real difference and sell more fresh produce for the great UK and International businesses we look to represent.”
The awards shine a spotlight on the innovation behind the growth of healthy, natural and organic, sustainable and “better for you” food products defining the future food and drink landscape.
The list of winners include:
– Innovative ‘Better for You’ Product of the Year: Avocado Oil Mayonnaise Classic Hunter & Gather Foods Ltd
– Innovative Natural and Organic Product of the Year: Pomegranate Molasses & Turmeric Raw Kale Chips, Biolicious.
– Most Innovative Food to Go Product of the Year: Snackamole, Born Tasty Ltd.
– Best Natural Ingredient for Health and Wellbeing” Spectra, Van Eeghen Functional Ingredients.
– Best Functional Ingredient for Health and Wellbeing: SlimBiome, OptiBiotix Health Plc.
– Sustainability Initiative of the Year: Rice Sustainability Initiative, Mars Food UK.
– Best Food and Drink Process or Technology” evapEOS technology, Ederna.
– Innovative Packaging Design of the Year: Heat & Eat, Fairfields Farm Produce Ltd
– Marketing Campaign of the Year: The Great Fruit and Veg Adventure
– New Food and Drink Product of the Year: Sea Wraps, Seamore
– Rosemary Water – sparkling variant, Rosemary Water.
“We were incredibly impressed by the standard and quality of entries to our first ever Food Matters Live Awards – there were very strong contenders in each category,” said Briony Mansell-Lewis, Food Matters Live director.
“While it was a tough choice, we’re pleased to recognise the outstanding achievements of the winners, who can only be described as innovative trailblazers of the food and drink industry.”
PBUK was exhibiting at Food Matters Live on the first shared fresh produce stand alongside The Great Fruit & Veg Adventure and other fresh produce companies including Westfalia, Vidafresh, Washington Apples and Blue Skies, as well as the Fresh Careers Fair and London Produce Show.
