Eat Seasonably
Our campaign to encourage seasonal eating
Background
Launched in 2009 and still the UK’s leading authority on seasonal fruit and veg, our award-winning campaign presents a clear and simple picture of what’s in season when and the benefits of eating produce when it’s at its best.
Insight
The food choices we make have a significant impact on the environment – a third of the UK’s carbon emissions are associated with our food and drink. Yet increasingly, many of us have no concept of the relationship between the food we eat and where, how and with what impact it’s produced. Our early research showed that knowledge amongst the public of what’s in season when, and the benefits of a seasonable diet, was hazy at best and not a purchasing consideration.
Intervention
Eat Seasonably aims to re-forge people’s connections with food and the seasons in which it’s grown, and provide an easy way to enjoy the benefits of eating seasonable fruit and veg. In its original inception, it also provided a focus for practical action by a broad range of partners. We developed at the heart of the campaign a simple calendar of what’s in season when and clearly defined the benefits:
Fresher, tastier, cheaper and better for the planet
Implementation
The campaign’s focus is online, with a popular website and historically a strong social media presence. Around this, in the first three years of the campaign, we built a major programme of activity with retailers, food service companies, charities and membership organisations, as well as a network of pubs, cafes, restaurants and greengrocers. This activity was all about presenting a clear and consistent picture to the public of what to eat and why, month by month.
Impact
Eat Seasonably was seed-funded by DEFRA for the first two years and launched with co-ordinated activity from over 40 major businesses and charities, thousands of small businesses, and the public support of Gregg Wallace and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Its first year saw seasonal eating enter the mainstream and played a major part in the rise of an unprecedented ‘grow your own’ movement.
The campaign then built into the go-to resource for people interested in seasonal fruit and veg, with millions of visits to the website, multi-year partnerships with major retailers and caterers and Facebook posts seen by hundreds of thousands.