The winner of Best Fresh Produce Retailer at the Convenience Retail Awards was announced on Thursday night as McBride Retail Group’s SPAR Mullaghmore store.
ACS is working with the Food Foundation as part of the Peas Please campaign to raise the profile of veg and other fresh produce in stores. ACS and Peas Please are sponsoring awards at the Convenience Retail Awards, HIM Awards and Retail Industry Awards throughout the year to promote best practice in selling fresh produce.
Anna Taylor, Executive Director of the Food Foundation said: “The attention to detail shown by the store in creating an appealing fresh produce display was excellent. We were also very impressed by the range of freshly prepared meal solutions in store that include a wide variety of vegetables and healthy produce.”
UK consumers are buying two thirds less veg than the amount recommended by health experts. According to Government guidance on a healthy diet, 20% of our shopping should be made up of vegetables, but in reality we only reach 7.2%. Figures from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation show that as many as 20,000 premature deaths annually in the UK could be avoided if we all ate more veg.
Peas Please have produced a toolkit for retailers which explains the ways that stores can improve the provision of fruit and veg in stores. The toolkit is available to download free here: https://foodfoundation.org.uk/retailer-toolkit/
More information about all of the finalists in the Convenience Retail Awards is available here: https://www.cr-awards.co.uk/
