Will our watercress Marketing campaign get this award ..........
The team at The Watercress Company are very tentatively brushing down their DJs and posh frocks as earlier this month their #watercress challenge, Grab it, Try it, Share it campaign reached the finals of the Food & Drink Federation Awards for Campaign of the Year.
Left on tenterhooks until 4 February 2021 when the winners will be announced at a ceremony in London, they are justly proud to have reached the finals especially considering the calibre of the companies, brands and marketing budgets they are up against; The Watercress Company is punching well above its weight!
The other 6 finalists are
Bird’s Eye - Bird’s Eye Steamfresh Eat in Full Colour
Britvic Soft Drinks - Sticky situation? Time to Tango
Company Shop Group - Surplus Super Heroes by Company Shop Group
KP - KP ‘Check Your Nuts’ Movember Campaign
Meatless Farm - The Meatless Consumption Target
Mondelez International - ‘Donate your Words’
How have we managed to rub shoulders with so many massive brands? Well, over the last 12 months or so, The Watercress Company has been making gargantuan efforts to promote the health benefits of watercress to a wider audience. Traditionally the watercress consumer has been slightly older, more familiar with the scientific research that was published 15 to 20 years ago and which helped to communicate the health advantages of eating watercress, including the possible prevention of some cancers. These messages have not reached the next generation and so efforts to communicate with a younger audience, while not alienating the loyal older customers were needed.
These efforts took several forms:
Direct communication with schools either through visits by local schools to the watercress farms or by The Watercress Company team going into schools to talk about watercress and why it’s so good for you, best of all encouraging youngsters to give it a go, either fresh from the bed or in a tasty, brilliant green smoothie!
Working with ambassadors from various walks of life, The Watercress Company was able to get everyday people to demonstrate how to include more watercress in their diet. Potential ambassadors applied for the ‘job’ and were sent free supplies of watercress. They may be into fitness, they may be foodies, or simply mums trying to encourage their kids to eat more greens but in return for the watercress, they were asked to write a blog to describe how they had used it, providing images of recipes, and how eating it had made them feel. Read them here.
Gyms and leisure centres were identified as places where younger people went who already had a desire to be fit and so were prime candidates for eating more watercress. The Watercress Company therefore branded up several fridges and delivered them to various gyms and fitness centres around the South West. The ‘Grab a Bag Stations’ or fridges were packed full of watercress and club members were encouraged to ‘grab it, try it and share it’ by simply posting on social media what they had done with the watercress, tagging the post with the line #watercress challenge
The natural progression from fitness clubs was to move the fridges to places where people were keen to help themselves to feel better in a different way - hospital. The Watercress Company has a long standing relationship with their local hospital in Dorchester, Dorset County Hospital. Here they have been providing the oncology ward with watercress smoothies for patients being treated for cancer for a number of years - the peppery watercress being something that people undergoing chemotherapy can taste. To broaden the reach of watercress and the relationship with the hospital, the Grab-a-Bag fridge was installed in the hospital’s restaurant where everyone, from staff, to visitor, to patient could take a bag and enjoy fresh watercress and its health benefits
With the commencement of lockdown, the hospital restaurant became a place only for the staff. The free watercress was provided purely for the key workers and staff at the hospital too. Staff, exhausted from working long shifts were grateful to have 24 hour access to fresh, healthy veg and the watercress was ideal for them to add to sandwiches or other food they had brought in or had delivered, to maintain their five a day. The whole Grab a bag scheme with Dorset County Hospital has seen The Watercress Company give away over 16,000 bags so far. As lockdown continued, The Watercress Company also provided our NHS Heroes with fresh watercress smoothies to give them an instant, quick, health hit.
The Watercress Company’s goodwill during lockdown not only catered for NHS staff and key workers at Dorset County Hospital, but, through joining forces with a raft of top quality chefs, they helped to provide hard working doctors and nurses at hospitals nationwide with mouth-watering restaurant quality food as part of the Heroes initiative supporting NHS staff across the country. With the majority of restaurants closed, chefs were offering their services for free, while suppliers from across the country donated their goods to ‘Help Them, Help Us’. NHS workers had identified access to healthy food while working long hours as a key issue and this was one way that the food industry could help.
The Watercress Company supplied fresh produce to one of the great Italian chefs working in Britain today, Francesco Mazzei who delivered over 2,000 meals to the canteen at Mile End Hospital, a canteen being used by staff members across the St Bart’s Health Alliance in London. He prepared everything fresh and used kilos and kilos of fresh watercress and spinach donated by The Watercress Company to make that classic favourite, fresh pasta with fresh pesto.
Meanwhile in Norfolk, The Watercress Company partnered with Michelin Star Chef, Galton Blackiston to again provide the ingredients for a hearty daube of beef with veg served to the 200 NHS staff and key workers at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn.
The Watercress Company understands the importance of chefs and their support in promoting watercress as a versatile ingredient and have long cultivated and nurtured relationships with up and coming chefs as well as more established ones.
Part of the #watercress challenge was an event held in London where chefs predicted to be the next big thing gathered for an inspiring ‘night of watercress’ with talks about its health benefits, its versatility and the different ways it can be used, before tucking into several courses brimming with watercress inventiveness, for once prepared and cooked for them
A visit to the watercress farm by long standing advocate of watercress, Jamie Oliver, with his pal, Jimmy Doherty in February gave awareness levels of watercress another boost. Filmed for their popular show, Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast, they helped to roll the crop prior to harvesting it, before a trip on The Watercress Line and cooking up a watercress filled feast
Also in February 2020, The Watercress Company began trials with Dorset County Hospital in an effort to help the NHS tackle a fundamental issue relating to patient nutrition, with the introduction of a nutrient dense watercress soup, made exclusively from British ingredients. Although the importance of nutritious food for hospital patients has been discussed for years, with chefs such as Lloyd Grossman, Albert Roux, James Martin and, most recently, Prue Leith all supporting campaigns for its improvement, it has always proved difficult. But The Watercress Company developed a recipe for a nutrient dense watercress soup with high energy and protein levels that is rich in vitamins and minerals - literally what the doctor ordered! It is easy to consume, tasty and, most importantly, it can be made within the existing financial constraints of the current daily meal budget provided to hospital catering teams.
The watercress used in the soup on trial came from UK grown winter crop which is not currently sold as the leaf is larger and the stems are thicker, but this is perfect crop for being whizzed into a soup. The ultimate aim is for fresh soup to be frozen into blocks with all the other ingredients to which hot water simply needs to be added before blending, making the meal preparation simple for the catering teams. This way a consistent product can be available all year round. Ultimately, The Watercress Company intends to develop a range of nutrient dense soups using different ingredients all featuring watercress, to provide a varied but healthy diet for patients.
The soup trials have the genuine potential to be a real game changer for the NHS and provides a win win situation for all. If the soup takes off and is adopted across the NHS, it will enable The Watercress Company to use 90,000kg of UK winter grown crop which might otherwise go to waste. At the same time, the hospital is able to serve nutritious, real food rather than supplements, which will potentially save money, and best of all the patients benefit from a nutrient dense, tasty soup that is easy to eat and will aid their recovery. Although the trials have had to go on hold due to the Coronavirus pandemic, as soon as is possible The Watercress Company will be pushing to get things moving again.
With the drive for sustainability being key for all food and drink businesses, The Watercress Company has taken inspiration from the past and launched traditional handcrafted bunches wrapped in 100% compostable paper cones to meet consumer demand for less plastic.
Watercress was hugely popular in Victorian times when it was sold at provincial markets across the country in bunches tied at the base for people to eat on the move like an ice cream cone. In more modern times this format did not suit retail specifications and watercress moved over to plastic bag packaging. Now, with the global demand to reduce plastic use, The Watercress Company has re-introduced 150g fresh watercress bunches, but this time they are wrapped in sustainable paper made in the Lake District and printed with natural, British ink. The paper is lightly coated in biodegradable plant wax to make it waterproof and the wrap is suitable for home-composting.
Already stocked by Ocado under the name Wholegood Organic Watercress Bunches, other national distributors currently stocking bagged watercress are looking at listing the bunches in the coming months, while they’re also available direct from The Watercress Company and from selected grocers, butchers, farm shops and box schemes nationwide.
With feedback such as:
“Not only is this watercress fresh and delicious, but it arrived in a beautifully folded origami package, which was surprising – and no plastic, the 100% compostable packaging is made from British wood pulp – we couldn’t be more delighted! We hope this is a packaging trend for all Ocado vegetables” we think The Watercress Company could be onto a winner!
See how the watercress is bunched and wrapped by hand here
Here’s just a few examples of how the press has been reporting on the launch of the bunches and spreading the word about how good watercress is for our health over the last couple of months.
All that achieved in little over a year - Phew! Surely this is work worthy of recognition and an award?