Peas Please is about making it easier for everyone to eat more veg. This project brings together farmers, retailers, fast food and restaurant chains, caterers, manufacturers, government departments, and Local Authorities with a common goal of making our food environment veg-friendlier.

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 in supply chains for increasing vegetable intake – improving the availability, acceptability (convenience and interest), affordability, and quality of the vegetable offer in shops, schools, fast food restaurants and beyond.

Peas Please seeks to facilitate increased veg consumption among the UK public, particularly children and those on a low income, by making veg the easy option for all.

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.

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

 

In 2017 we worked to secure commitments, embedded within an accountability framework, from industry and public authorities to play their part to help everyone in Britain eat an extra portion of veg a day.

This work culminated in the announcement of 40 pledges made by businesses and Local Authorities at three Vegetable Summits in London, Edinburgh, and Wales on 24th October 2017. See the full list here.

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 can contact Pete Ritchie.