Veg Power and ITV’s Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign contributes to a long-term improvement in child

Veg Power and ITV have announced five-year evaluation data from their multi-award winning Eat Them T…

Veg Power and ITV have announced five-year evaluation data from their multi-award winning Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign, which confirms that repeated involvement in the campaign leads to increased veg consumption over the long-term.1 53% of parents with children involved in the schools’ programme reported a long-term benefit in not only the volume of vegetables consumed, but also the variety.

With 29% of children eating less than one portion of vegetables per day, these results are an important step in improving children’s diets and the health of our nation. In addition, the findings suggest that more children should benefit from exposure to the campaign as poor diet in childhood not only disadvantages them as kids but also into adulthood, resulting in ever increasing healthcare costs and lower productivity.

The Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign inspires kids to eat more veg by combining the power of advertising with a schools’ programme. It brings together a huge alliance including TV advertising, celebrities, supermarkets, chefs, schools, communities and families. Since it launched in 2019, the campaign has directly generated an additional £132m in vegetables sales, equivalent to 1.4bn children’s veg portions.

This year’s campaign was supported by £3.5m of advertising led by ITV, Channel 4 and Sky Media reaching 57% of families with children. Evaluation data confirmed that 45% of children and 31% of parents who saw the advertising ate more veg.1 Applying these figures to the population of UK children, this equates to 1.36m children eating more vegetables as a direct result.

The schools’ programme had another successful year, with now over 1.5 million different children from 4,884 primary and special schools benefiting over the last five years.

2023 evaluation highlights included:
•Increasing veg consumption - 77% of parents who were aware of the programme in their kid’s school reported their child ate more vegetables as a direct result of the campaign.
•Reaching the most “veg resistant” kids - 66% of parents who were aware of the programme in their kid’s school and whose children vocally dislike vegetables, said their child ate more vegetables because of our schools programme.
•Repeating the campaign - the majority of parents (89%) and children (85%) would like the campaign to return next year.

The 2023 Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign was an alliance between ITV, Channel 4 and Sky Media who have collectively contributed over £15m of advertising to this campaign since it began. This year’s campaign, developed by adam&eveDDB who work on the campaign pro bono, returned to TV screens during The Masked Singer on ITV. The campaign was funded by major supermarket and food brands Aldi, Coop, Dole, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.