Raising awareness amongst students: Vegetables 2000 V1

An initiative to raise awareness about eating vegetables amongst students. “Vegetables 2000” is proof that by adopting an appropriate tone and using relevant tools people can be motivated to take action!

Context

Although they are aware it is not good for their health, students’ diets often lack diversity. The Louis Bonduelle Foundation asked what could be done to change their eating behaviour and put vegetables back at the heart of their diets.

"We know all about the benefits of vegetables, but we’re not in the habit of eating them. What we need to find is the thing that will make us take that first step." This view, expressed by Brice, a student in Paris, a few weeks before the Vegetables 2000 campaign, nicely sums up students’ attitudes to vegetables. Young people have had enough of moralising “do this, don’t do that” messages. They know that vegetables are good for their health and full of benefits. But they still don’t change their eating habits. The challenge is therefore more about changing behaviours than attitudes.

Against this background, the Foundation was determined to put vegetables back into students’ day-to-day lives by …

• being there right at the point of consumption
• motivating them and giving them advice on eating and             preparing vegetables in a way that suited their lifestyle
• conveying a message that was a deliberate move away from more didactic communications
• adopting an off-beat, humorous tone borrowed from the 1970s

Resources

A comprehensive scheme based on a lively, original approach appropriate to the target market.

A) Events in 10 French university canteens in Bordeaux - Lyon - Rennes - Paris - Lille : 16,000 took part in the campaign

B) 1 vegetable-based snack in each canteen with baskets of ready-to-eat vegetables

C) 1 slide show and packs of 7 handy cards handed out. Each card is written in a deliberately off-beat style and reflects a situation in the day-to-day life of a student. Vegetables feature as a quick, simple solution on each one. E.g. cucumber salad with lemon and mint for fresh breath to give you "confidence when you’re out on a date".

D) 1 website to keep Vegetables 2000 at the top of the agenda outside the canteen events, with a range of original, off-beat goodies:

• a vegetable mix "of young people’s songs with a contemporary beat",
• T-shirt transfers,
• e-slides to send,
• a competition with a mini-kitchen to win,
• recipe ideas and more.

Results

The Foundation succeeded in its challenge: capturing the attention of students and changing their eating behaviours. In order to measure the effectiveness of the campaign and and find out more about their eating patterns, the Louis Bonduelle Foundation carried out a study amongst 340 students.

This study showed that :

A) The students were persuaded to eat enough vegetables (58.2% every day). This included the salad leaves and sliced tomato used to garnish a plate of chips, a sandwich and other similar dishes.

In practice, young people do not eat enough vegetables. According to a study carried out in 2002 by the INCA (National Individual Survey of Food Consumption) only 1.6% of men aged 15 to 25 years and 2% of young women in the same age group ate at least 5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day, as recommended by the PNNS (National Health Nutrition Programme).

B) They find it difficult to identify what stops them from eating more vegetables: 54% think they are too expensive, 40% find they take too long to cook, 28% do not know how to prepare them.

The results show how effective the campaign was:

A) During the campaign :

• the event helped improve the image of vegetables amongst students, in particular those who did not eat very many: 55% wanted to eat vegetables as a result of the campaign.
• it offered solutions : Of the 31.2% of students who said they did not eat vegetables more often because they had no desire to, 58% wanted to after the event.
• Of the 28.8% of students who said they did not eat vegetables more often because they did not know how to prepare them, 82% felt the event was in line with their expectations and 88% found it instructive it made 61.3% of the students want to eat vegetables in the days following the campaign. 

B) 3 weeks after the campaign :

A second study was carried out 3 weeks after the campaign to measure its effectiveness in the medium term and analyse the impact of the methods used on changing eating behaviours in relation to vegetables. The prospects for changing consumption patterns seen following the first survey were confirmed:

• the event made 50% of the  students want to eat vegetables.    
• 36% of them said they had put this into practice by eating more vegetables at mealtimes (48% of respondents) and as a snack with drinks (27%).
• The recipe ideas and vegetable snacks were very popular.  two thirds of the students had kept the leaflet. 50% of the students had shown the leaflet to friends.

Download the study about the vegetables consumption of the young people (in french). 

Conclusion:  

By using an appropriate message, the Foundation successfully captured the attention of a group of people who are generally felt not to be interested in dietary issues. Using simple, reproducible methods, 36% of the students involved in the campaign changed their eating behaviours in relation to vegetables.

The success of the campaign was also recognised by professionals: the Louis Bonduelle Foundation, together with the agency Expertease, won the Strategies / La Poste award for 2005 in the category "mass market food, B to C sector".