Birds Eye’s UK marketing boss on why doing good is good for business

Q How important is it for brands to put weight behind issues like this?

Brands such as Birds Eye have a responsibility to push the moral agenda. NGOs and the likes of WRAP [the Waste Resources Action Programme] are vital in the fight against food waste but brands have to stand up and play a role too. Clearly we have resources available to us financially but equally the fact that four fifths of the UK consumer base will buy into Birds Eye means that our ability to impact what consumers do and think about is second to none.

Q How is a campaign of this nature beneficial from a business perspective?

This is a movement we are trying to drive so I don’t want to escape from that as the primary motivator. One in five Brits’ grocery shops is at least half frozen already but that obviously provides an element of headroom. In that context there is a huge opportunity for more consumers to understand the breadth of the offer available within frozen.

Q To what extent does this campaign go beyond CSR?

We know that the freezer as an appliance is opened significantly less than the fridge so in helping to educate consumers about the role of the freezer we can encourage them to put a few more frozen products in there.

But I wouldn’t step away from the fact that the crux of the idea came from, and still remains, that we believe we have a vital role to play in helping to mitigate this burgeoning epidemic of food waste and the fact that the freezer is the number one solution to help address that.