Sesame Street friends promote county veggies
Characters encourage kids to eat healthy
“Me want peppers!”
Cookie Monster has added Leamington greenhouse peppers to his usual cookie cravings.
Nature Fresh Farms, the largest greenhouse pepper grower in North America, landed Cookie Monster and other Sesame Street characters for its latest labels and packaging through the U.S. Produce Marketing Association’s eat brighter movement with Sesame Workshop.
The campaign, which was launched by First Lady Michelle Obama, is trying to get children to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.
“Cookie monster has taken a turn for the better and this time around is snacking on peppers,” Nature Fresh Farms marketing director Chris Veillon said Tuesday.
“That’s not to say he still doesn’t love cookies but in our instance, in our presentation, he’s all about sweet bell peppers.”
Nature Fresh Farms will launch its new packaging this week at a Florida trade show and consumers in Canada and the United States can expect to see Sesame Street characters on pepper, tomato and cucumber packages and labels in April.
Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Grover and Oscar are all matched up with some kind of greenhouse tomato while Elmo appears to have a hankering for Nature Fresh Farms minicucumbers.
Veillon said it’s an incredible opportunity to appeal to children and their parents and promote fresh produce. The company jumped at the chance to be part of a larger movement that uses the Twitter hashtag #eatbrighter.
“COOKIE MONSTER HAS TAKEN A TURN FOR THE BETTER AND THIS TIME AROUND IS SNACKING ON PEPPERS.” CHRIS VEILLON
Thanks to the unique program, the company can use the Sesame Street characters on its labels for a nominal administration fee until December 2016 and doesn’t have to pay expensive licensing fees.
He said Nature Fresh Farms even custom-designed small stickers to go on individual peppers that could be fun collectibles for kids.
The family-owned Nature Fresh Farms is one of more than 40 suppliers with licensing agreements with the campaign including another local greenhouse vegetable grower, Mucci Farms Ltd. in Kingsville, and some well-known brand names such as Sunkist Growers. Mucci Farms says to expect new mini-cucumber packages with Big Bird in Canadian stores this week and more “eat brighter” packaging soon.
Veillon said it is awesome to having Cookie Monster pitch greenhouse vegetables.
“Known to eat vast amounts of cookies, we thought that Cookie Monster would be the perfect role model for someone to eat the multi-colour of red, orange and yellow bell peppers,” Veillon said.
Now that Cookie Monster is eating his vegetables, maybe he can work on his grammar.