HGCA breakfast campaign helps raise the profile of farming

This year’s HGCA Farmhouse Breakfast Week saw over 1,000 events take place around the country to help raise the profile of farming and drive demand for cereal products.

The annual campaign, which invites farmers to promote the breakfast plate to consumers, also saw 1,700 Farmhouse Breakfast Week resources ordered by growers, farmshops, cafes and schools – a 25% increase on last year.

The campaign’s online channels proved successful too, with the re-vamped HGCA Farmhouse Breakfast Week website – Shake Up Your Wake Up – attracting 25,000 views and a 40% increase in Twitter followers. Entries for Breakfast Week Challenge, an online event which aimed to get people eating breakfast for five days during Farmhouse Breakfast Week (20 – 26 January), were up 68% this year. New for 2013 was #BreakfastWatch, which saw 600 photos of breakfast posted online.

The 2013 campaign, which was fronted by Saturday Cookbook presenter Nadia Sawalha, also achieved £2.9 million worth of press coverage.

HGCA board member, Andrew Brown who runs a 250ha mixed farm in Rutland, fronted the farming side of the event on HGCA’s behalf during the week by putting on a special assembly for 180 local school children.

He said: “People don’t know about farming and food production and it’s our job to tell the public about what we do. HGCA’s Farmhouse Breakfast Week offers a variety of channels to communicate these important messages to consumers. We need to build on the successes of this year’s campaign and drive these messages forward, so I hope farmers will get involved in next year’s Farmhouse Breakfast Week to keep on reminding consumers of where their food comes from.”

Children from Slains School in Aberdeenshire also enjoyed learning more about making breakfast favourites including sausages thanks to HGCA Scottish Monitor Farmer Andrew Booth as part of the initiative.

HGCA runs a number of consumer campaigns to help raise awareness of the nutritional benefits of cereals and oilseeds products – Wholegrain Goodness, All about Oats and Rapeseed Oil Benefits offer consumers advice as well as a variety of recipes.