New World ditching Little Gardens to focus on food waste

Friday, 31 August 2018

New World's popular seedling giveaway, Little Gardens, has been scrapped this year in favour of a takeaway container campaign to combat food waste.

New World's Little Garden promotion gave away 16 million seedlings to customers since 2016.

It was part of the string of Little Shops promotion, which began in 2013 to celebrate the supermarket chain's 50th anniversary.

But the supermarket chain has scuppered the initiative in favour of a giveaway focused on highlighting the issue of food waste.

* New World Little Garden full set fetches $210**

The supermarket chain has introduced a collection of four reusable vacuum-seal containers called Pods that customers redeem stickers to get.

Foodstuffs, New World's parent company, spokeswoman Sue Hamilton said the change in focus was 'about doing something new to address another issue'.

An estimated $100.5 million worth of leftovers goes to waste each year in New Zealand.

Hamilton said focusing on food waste had become a bigger priority for the company.

But she did not rule out the return of Little Gardens to shops.

'We're taking a breather from it this year, but you never know what we'll do down the track.'

Evolve Marketing founder Brandon Wilcox said the move away from the Little Gardens campaign could be born out of boredom.

New World Little Garden seedling sets have sold for as much as $700, solidifying the campaign's status as a collectable.

'Marketers tend to get bored of their own campaigns and they're always looking to do something new so it's possible there's some wear out [from the Little Gardens campaign] and they've come up with a new campaign, or they think they need to do something new because they're sick of the campaign when in fact they would be better off keeping the old promotion running.'

As part of the new Pods giveaway, every customer will receive one sticker for every $20 spent in-store. Four stickers can be redeemed for the storage containers' vacuum-sealing pump and between 12 to 18 can be redeemed for the four different containers. The containers are made out of BPA free plastic, Tritan.

The promotion runs from Monday September 3 to Sunday October 14.

New World head of marketing Dom Quin said the company partnered with anti-food waste campaign Love Food Hate Waste to create the Pods storage containers.

'We're super conscious of the role we can play in helping Kiwis eat better, save more each day and make the most of what they buy from us,' he said.

Kiwis throw away 9,489 tonnes of leftovers each year, according to Love Food Hate Waste, which costs an estimated $100.5m.

Love Food Hate Waste spokeswoman Jenny Marshall said there was no excuse for New Zealanders not to be making the most of their leftovers.

'Initiatives like New World Pods can make a staggering difference to the amount of food we're throwing away and also to our wallets - the less we throw away, the more we save.'

But Wilcox said it would be a rarity for the new Pod initiative to be as popular as Little Gardens was.

'If you have something out there that is treasured for generations it reinforces brand history it reinforces brand longevity - it's gold in this line of work and it's not often it happens.'

The Little Gardens promotion became so popular, a Trade Me auction sold an entire set of the miniature plant pods for $700.

Customers would get a seedling kit for every $40 spent in store and there were 24 kits to collect, with last year's promotion focusing on bee-friendly plants.

Wilcox said it was 'nirvana for a marketer' to create a promotion that becomes a collectable.