Fruit 'n Veg Makeover For Convenience Stores

Dean Nicholas
By Dean Nicholas Last edited 174 months ago
Fruit 'n Veg Makeover For Convenience Stores

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Rule #1 when you're launching a new product or service in the local community: don't piss off members of said community.

On Thursday morning a gaggle of people including local schoolkids, farmers, press, and Rosie Boycott descended on a Costcutter store in Tower Hamlets to launch a new idea by the Buywell Project to encourage healthy eating. They're working with 16 stores across the capital on Change 4 Life, which is helping to increase the availability and affordability of fresh fruit 'n veg across some of London's poorer areas, ones that are often ill-served when it comes to helping people reach that much-mooted five-a-day target. The food is sourced from local markets like New Spitalfields, hence providing a boost to food producers and linking what goes in your mouth to the ground it grows from, and priced cheaply enough so that it'll be an alternative to cakes and sickly sweets.

A fine goal, and Britain can do a lot better in that regard — our recommended five pieces of fruit is half that of other countries like the USA recommend their citizens chew on for a healthy lifestyle. A previous experiment similar to this one in the north-east saw the sales of fresh fruit and veg rise by 40%.

It's just a shame that the launch event was a chaotic affair: the irritated-looking locals hanging around outside waiting for the crowded shop to empty out so they could go in and buy the morning essentials probably saw it as an intrusion rather than a great new idea. Let's hope they're won round.

Last Updated 25 September 2009