Follow Me to be Healthy with Europe: the #400gChallenge announces new partnerships with high-profile European social media influencers

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Dec. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Follow me to be Healthy with Europe campaign announced a new partnership with 6 European social media influencers for its final twelve months.

Launched by Freshfel Europe and Aprifel, and co-funded by the European Commission, the campaign's aim is to encourage young Europeans to increase their consumption of fruit and vegetables to a minimum of 400g a day, to improve and ultimately transform millennials' dietary habits.

Using the hashtag #400gChallenge, followers are 'challenged' to include more fruit and vegetables in their daily diet. These challenges are promoted by monthly infographics, tips, and videos, which showcase the health benefits of fruit and vegetables in an engaging and relatable format across the campaign's social media channels.

At the launch event at the Eurockéennes festival in Belfort in July 2019, 1 ton of fresh fruit and vegetables was distributed to festivalgoers. While the campaign had also planned to visit events in 2020, this was not possible due to the public health situation.

However, as a digital-first initiative, it was fortunately still possible to reach a wide target audience without being physically present. The Europe-wide campaign has generated over 40 million impressions on social media since its launch in July 2019, and aims to build on this achievement in the final year of the project. "2021 is the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables and thus an important year for the campaign. Our online presence allows us to reach a large audience right across Europe as we encourage our followers to take part in the #400gChallenge, to boost their fruit and vegetable consumption throughout the year," said Philippe Binard, Freshfel Europe's General Delegate.

For this reason, the online element of the campaign was bolstered by expanding online partnerships. In 2021, 7 high-profile European social media influencers will be involved in promoting the campaign, including Spaniard Carlos Rios, German Denise Schuster, Italian Luisa Ambrosini, Polish lifemanagerka and French Clemfoodie and Gaëlle Prudencio. More collaborations will also be announced in 2021.

These partnerships aim to show that eating a diet high in fruit and vegetables is not only healthy but also delicious, easy to achieve and fun to experiment with. "Working with European influencers is a great way to carry our message across borders. It allows us to reach different communities, even young people who would otherwise not necessarily pay attention to health and nutrition," said Mathilde Fléchard, Aprifel's European project manager. While increased online activities have proven a success, the campaign hopes to attend physical events again once it is safe to do so.

In Europe, 1 in 5 adults are obese, and by 2030 it is estimated that more than 50% of the European population will suffer from obesity. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "fruit and vegetables are important components of a healthy diet"[1]. As such, the WHO recommends the consumption of at least 400g of fruit and vegetables per day. Yet, fruit and vegetable consumption levels across most of the EU Member States remain well below this consumption target, with only 14% of the European population meeting this recommendation.

This low fruit and vegetable consumption is particularly noticeable among 18-30-year-olds. For this reason, this pan-European awareness campaign focuses on this specific target group.

Download the campaign's digital press kit in English here

[1] https://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/fruit/en/

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