Peas Please brings together farmers, retailers, fast food and restaurant chains, caterers, processors and government departments with a common goal of making it easier for everyone to eat veg.

Nourish is working in partnership with the Food Foundation, WWF-UK and Food Cardiff on this groundbreaking initiative.

In the first stage of the project, we explored the levers along the supply chain which have the potential to increase vegetable consumption in a sustainable manner. Peas Please recognises that, to date, education programmes have not had the desired impact.  So this project focuses on the wealth of opportunities there are, in the supply chain, for increasing vegetable intake -improving the availability, acceptability (including convenience), affordability, and quality of the vegetable offer in shops, schools, fast food restaurants and beyond.

There are five peas in our Peas Please pod:

• Pleasure – making our veg delicious whenever we eat it and connecting us to where our veg comes from
• Producers –growing veg sustainably at all different scales
• Prices that work for producers and consumers
• Products – new ways of getting veg into what we buy and eat every day
• Placement – more prominence in shops and on menus, more places to buy it in towns and cities

You can read a full concept note of the project here.

The project aims to secure commitments, embedded within an accountability framework, from industry and government to improve the vegetable offer, and stimulate increased consumption among the UK public, particularly children and those on a low income.

The Peas Please partners are currently in discussion with the industry and all levels of governments to secure commitments. All pledges will be announced at the Vegetable Summit on 24th October

Examples of pledges:

• Retailers (super markets & convenience stores) commit to increase their veg sales as a % of total food sales
• Wholesalers and Cash and carries collaboratively commit to developing a retailer-facing online portal, so that retailers can readily ascertain the veg offer in their local area.
• Quick service and casual dining restaurants commit to increase the number of portions of veg they serve
• Public procurement bodies and major contract caterers sign a “2 by 2020 veg pledge” to commit to the principle that every publicly procured meal includes 2 portions of vegetables by 2020
• Food manufacturers commit to implement standards for recipes using their products which include 2 portions of veg per main meal
• Retailers and brands commit to ensuring an increase in the volume of veg in ready meal recipes
• Broadcasters commit to give veg a good image in kids TV through developing guidelines for producers
• FFS commits to strengthen school food standards on veg
• The Scottish Government commit to increase uptake of Healthy Start to 90% and pilot an expansion of the scheme
• The Scottish Government commit to implement special measures for horticulture in the agriculture strategy
• Cities commit to become Veg Cities

A retreat with key stakeholders

In Autumn 2016, 15-20 high-level participants from multiple sectors and sub-sectors within the food industry, creative industries and digital industries attended a retreat. This focused on reaching agreement on the key supply side barriers (inc. gov policy, practice and legislation) to vegetable consumption within and beyond the following themes:

• UK vegetable production
• Routes to market
• Point of sale, advertising, and formulation
• Waste and packaging
• Public provision
• Innovation and R&D

See a video of the Retreat here.

The Veg Launch

On November 7th 2016, we simultaneously launched the project in London, Cardiff and Glasgow.

At the events we unveiled a brand new Veg Factfile. Nourish Director Pete Ritchie introduced the project at the Scotland Launch – you can see the presentation here. We also heard from Peter Midgley from Food Standards Scotland, Wendy Russell from the Rowett Institute and Margaret Fraser and John Thorburn from NG Homes.

You can see the Storify of the three simultaneous launches here.

Focus groups on 8 workstreams

In the first half of 2017, a series of workshops took place to review in more detail the barriers and identify supply chain solutions. Experts were invited to join these workshops to provide advice and evidence on specific areas. From this eight working groups emerged:

Veg in Everything
Veg on Show
Veg on the Go
Veg Direct
Urban Veg
Outlook for Veg
Clever with Veg
Veg Everywhere

Final summit: pledges for more veg

With a clear picture of what needs to change and can change, we will seek commitments to specific actions from all levels of government and from the food industry in line with the recommendations in a final summit, simultaneously in Edinburgh, London, and Cardiff on 24th October 2017.

Food businesses – working in production, manufacturing, catering, wholesaling, retailing, or any other part of food supply chains – and other stakeholders interested in getting involved or supporting this project should contact Pete Ritchie or Celia Nyssens.