Scott Farms International has launched consumer-facing promotional campaign for sweet potatoes.

The initiative has up to £120,000 for the first 12 months and was unveiled last week with a series of recipes from Worcester-based celebrity chef Felice Tocchini, who is known for his recipes that transformed the Brussels sprouts category.

The project will feature school demonstrations following a pilot at Evesham’s Fresh Food Festival and a drive on winter-themed recipes from November. This will be backed by a website, www.lovesweetpotatoes.com.

This move follows a 1,000-strong study that showed that just over half (55 per cent) buy sweet potatoes, the majority buy them once a month or bi-weekly, only half know of the vegetable’s nutritional value and one in four is unsure how to cook them.

Director Stan Smith said: “The research that we carried out set us a challenge. We knew that we couldn’t rely on natural growth to continue to increase consumption so we decided to invest in a consumer campaign.

“It’s often next to potatoes, but it’s not a potato and nor is it an exotic but it is one of your 5 A DAY. It’s actually a vegetable and we want to make it a mainstream vegetable.”

Scott Farms International is a subsidiary of North Carolina-based Scott Farms and imports approximately 20,000 tonnes of sweet potatoes to the UK each year.

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