The award honours trailblazing companies and people who brilliantly market and sell produce to increase overall consumption.
International Fresh Produce Association Australia and New Zealand (IFPA A-NZ) managing director Belinda Wilson accepted the award on behalf of the campaign’s funding partners, AUSVEG, Hort Innovation, Perfection Fresh Australia, Flavorite, Mitolo Family Farms, Premier Fresh Australia and Mackays Marketing.
Belinda and popular The Wiggles’ character Dorothy the Dinosaur were in New York to showcase the campaign at the show’s keynote breakfast, ribbon cutting ceremony and consumer media luncheon.
“We were thrilled to be invited to the show and to have the opportunity to showcase the campaign and the Australian fresh produce industry as a whole," Belinda explains.
"To win this prestigious award in such a setting is an incredible honour and a wonderful surprise,” she says.
“It is recognition for the efforts of the entire fresh produce industry to put healthy, safe fresh produce on our tables every day and it will provide the platform to positively impact fresh produce consumption around the world.”
The award recognises programs which galvanise industry to work together through partnership to effect meaningful change.
Led by IFPA A-NZ and backed by industry and some of Australia’s most powerful fresh produce organisations, the unprecedented, whole-of-industry campaign is a practical activation to make fruit and vegetable eating fun for children.
The campaign name is a playful twist on the iconic Wiggles hit song “Fruit Salad Yummy Yummy”.
“In the six months since we launched the campaign at Hort Connections it has gathered extraordinary pace around the world and there's so much more to come,” Belinda says.
“Working together as an industry with The Wiggles, we have the power to change consumption habits and begin to address our global health crisis,” she says.
"Fruit and Veggies Yummy Yummy is a multi-media education campaign blending digital, social and live experiences by celebrating fresh food in an age-appropriate, positive way.”
About 5000 delegates attended the New York Produce Show and Conference in the first week of December.
