Foodservice Marketing Agency - Inglorious Fruits and VegetablesWe’re not afraid to highlight other people’s great work here at Jellybean. Especially when it comes to great work that addresses serious issues in the food and drink industry we love so much – here’s a great one from Intermarche in France.

Currently part of the ‘Designs of the Year 2015’ exhibit at our very own Design Museum in London, this campaign titled ‘Inglorious Fruit and Vegetables’ tackles the problem we face globally where 300 million tonnes of fruit and vegetables are thrown away every year because they are unusual looking.

As 2014 was the International Year Against Food Waste, Intermarche made the decision to tack onto the back of this activity and address the issue head on.

Stars of the campaign were the ‘Grotesque Apple’, the ‘Ridiculous Potato’, the ‘Hideous Orange’, the ‘Failed Lemon’, the ‘Disfigured Eggplant’, the ‘Ugly Carrot’ and the ‘Unfortunate Clementine’.

The pay off to all of this was that now it’s even easier to eat your five a day as these fruit and vegetables are as good as ‘calibrated’ fruit and vegetables, only these ‘inglorious’ ones are 30% cheaper. So a great PR message, and a saving for customers. Win Win.

To counter any concerns from consumers that these inglorious products were inferior in terms of flavour, Intermarche produced a range of ‘inglorious’ soups and juices which they sampled in store – if you’re chopping, souping, juicing or dicing these fruits and vegetables, what does it matter how they look when you buy them?

The results? An overall store traffic increase of 24%  with a reach of 21 million people on social media after one month.

The recipe for success here as we see it? Well, it seemed like a perfect combination of:

  • Allying your work to a great piece of PR activity which has real penetration as well as a truly worthy cause
  • Great creative with a sense of humour
  • Boots on the ground in stores to sample the fruits and vegetables and to answer questions
  • Traditional PR
  • Social Media


Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice marketing agency and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, food and drink pr, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.