Goodness kids have been going mad for fruit and veg

Monday 05 September 2016

A child-friendly fruit and veg scheme has grown into a huge success for the Co-op this Summer.

The Goodness Gang promotion has seen thousands of children helping their mums and dads check out at the Co-op so that they can collect a load of cuddly fruit and veg.

The Co-op's Chief Operating Officer Mark Cox said: “Without a doubt, we’ve seen an increase in sales but it wasn’t our overall intention. It was to get children interested in fruit and veg, looking at new recipes. I’m not aware of many children talking about aubergines previously.

"In total we’ll have given out over 50,000 characters in Jersey and Guernsey, Sophie Strawberry and Ben Banana have been by far the most popular."

The Goodness Gang promotion has not only kept parents busy driving round trying to track down their children's favourite fruit and veg, it's kept the Co-op's marketing team busy too with colouring and photo competitions on social media as well as in-store fruit and veg demonstrations.

Mr Cox said: "It's had our biggest reach on Facebook, it's reached 27,000 people. We're really pleased.

"We’ve seen them in the Jersey Race Club Meet, in cars. Children have taken them on holiday – there’s been some really creative stuff, it’s certainly kept our marketing team busy."

Mr Cox said they've been growing another 6,000 characters which should be in the Grand Marche stores by the end of this week for those who haven't had a chance to redeem their page of stickers yet but he said it will be first come first serve and once they are gone, they're gone.