Morrisons has launched ‘It’s Good To Grow’, a campaign in all of its stores that will donate gardening equipment to schoolchildren across the UK.
The Big 4 grocer said the campaign hopes of educating children about where their food comes from.
The scheme will see customers receive one ‘It’s Good to Grow’ token in their My Morrisons account via the app and website for every £10 that is spent in-store or online.
This can then be donated to any school to redeem equipment such as gardening tools, composting bins and seeds to grow.
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The move comes as earlier this year, The National Food Strategy outlined the need for the UK to improve dietary health whilst protecting the environment, warning that a failure to do so could lead to obesity costing the NHS £15 billion by 2035.
Morrisons said it hopes the initiative will help build a connection between kids and healthy food by making school children more aware of the journey of food from field to fork.
New research by YouGov on behalf of Morrisons has found that some children aged six to 15 do not have a good understanding of how fruits and vegetables are grown.
For example, only 34 per cent correctly identified how asparagus is grown, with 32 per cent stating that asparagus is grown underground and 21 per cent saying they don’t know how it is grown.
However, according to recent findings, 70 per cent of 1115 children surveyed aged six to 15 said they are more likely to eat produce that they have grown and cared for themselves.
The Morrisons scheme aims to build a closer relationship between children and fruit and vegetables, as 56 per cent of the children aged six to 10 in the UK are not currently eating their recommended amount of fruit and vegetables each day, according to research.
“We’re really proud of the work that we do for British food and with British farmers. It’s great to be able to launch a campaign that will give our youngest customers the knowledge and equipment to gain a better understanding about where food comes from and how to grow it,” Morrisons chief customer and marketing officer Rachel Eyre said.
“We want children to engage with nature as it will help them to start eating more healthily now and in the future, because they are more likely to eat fruit and vegetables when they understand them or have grown them themselves.”
This is the latest initiative introduced by Morrisons that aims to encourage a sustainable future and follows wider business commitments such as pledging to be completely supplied by net-zero emission British farms by 2030 and committing to the Peas Please initiative, run by the Food Foundation, to encourage customers to eat more vegetables.
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