Anne Wareing, marketing manager, Simply Fresh Foods.

At Simply Fresh Foods, we recognise the importance of offering our customers and consumers high-quality fresh prepared vegetable meal solutions.

With the 5 A DAY message being given a high profile, consumers are gradually changing their eating habits, taking more control of their health and actively making changes to improve it.

At Simply Fresh Foods, we have started work on a number of initiatives to educate consumers to eat healthily and to highlight the availability of convenient vegetable products. The freshly prepared stir fry and prepared vegetable packs are ideal for quickly adding to a main meal to help consumers increase their 5 A DAY intake.

We are currently working with a couple of the Super League Rugby teams; Wigan Warriors and Leeds Rhinos. We have provided them with fresh stir-fry packs for use at training sessions and have given the players cookery demonstrations and nutrition advice to ensure they eat healthy options to provide the energy they need to play at their best.

The players provide a perfect platform to stress the importance of eating a healthy diet to young children who may aspire to becoming rugby players themselves.

We are also teaming up with Morrisons and supporting the 5 A DAY programme's Stir Fryday (September 30, 2005). Morrisons' stores will be stickering all of their fresh stir-fry packs with the Stir Fryday logo for one week prior to Stir Fryday and one week after.

We hope that this activity, supported by the many regional events taking place across the country will help to educate consumers on the health aspects of cooking food by stir frying.

As an industry, we must help consumers to become healthier and to eat more fruit and vegetables. Events such as Stir Fryday are a great way to do this, while also promoting fresh produce and portraying healthy cooking in a fun, positive light.

We must also continue to provide innovation in our products to appeal to our customers and consumers, which in the long term should help people eat more fresh vegetables.

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