BRITISH celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's influence in trying to get children eating healthier has prompted a vegetable seed company in Australia to re-think how it deals with used trial plots.
As with most seed companies in Australia, Bejo Seeds Pty Ltd hold its open days annually.
This is a chance to showcase the company's standard varieties, along with new material for comparison.
A specialist producer of outdoor vegetable seeds, Bejo has a diverse range of crops, and its farm manager, David Tilders, is tasked with ensuring the timings are just right to show the varieties at their best each year.
It’s a lot of work for just two days of grower visits, so what happens to all the vegetables once it’s over?
Until five years ago, the leftover vegetables just got ploughed back into the ground.
But this all changed thanks to Jamie Oliver and his push to get children to eat more healthily.
Following on from Oliver's school dinners campaign and seeing how so many children had little or no knowledge about vegetables, the staff at Bejo got thinking about how they could use their trials to try and change this.
In 2011, a local school was approached to see if it would be interested in visiting the farm after the Open Days so the children could see the crops in the ground.
The concept was that if the kids could look, touch and taste the vegetables, they might be encouraged to eat more, or at least try something new.
The school was very positive and even though neither party knew what to expect, two busses arrived at the farm in Skye, Victoria on a bright and sunny April morning where about 70 children piled out.
Although the Bejo staff members are passionate about vegetables, the challenge for them was to make it interesting for a bunch of nine to 10- year-olds.
Key staff members delivered a short talk in the warehouse about Bejo and the type of vegetable seeds it produces.
The children then set off into the paddock armed with carrier bags. They were able to look at and touch the vegetables, and were encouraged to pick some themselves to take home.
This turned out to be the highlight of the day for both the children and the staff.
The children enjoyed pulling on green leaves poking out of the ground and being amazed when there was a carrot or a beetroot on the end of it.
They were excited to see their favourite vegetables and happy to take some new ones home to try.
Most of all, they were enthusiastic and willing to try something new.
As the children were getting back on the bus, even the teachers were beaming, with one of them describing it as the best excursion he’d been on.
Since then, the grade four children have been back every year.
In 2013, a second school was also invited.
The day is more organised now with a short talk and presentation followed by a vegetable tasting session which includes orange carrots, purple carrots, celery and kohlrabi.
Word has spread about the chance to pick vegetables, so each child usually comes with at least two bags in order to carry home their goodies.
The Bejo staff members said they never cease to be amazed at the excitement of the children and their enthusiasm to learn about vegetables.
The excitement could be summed up from an account at this year's event where one child was heard to say excitedly that it was "just like being in a candy store, only with vegetables".
- Copy supplied by Bejo Seeds.