|
How it all
began
Although our
archivist has found mentions of Vegetarian Days held on 11 October
1936, 3 October 1937 and 2 October 1938, National Vegetarian
Week as we know it had its roots in the very successful National
Vegetarian
Day
we staged on 2 October 1991. It went down so well we thought, "why
stop at a day, why not a week?"
The first Week
ran between 18 September and 4 October 1992 and included the recipe
booklet "Seven Delicious Days", promotions in pub chains,
restaurants and selected supermarkets and the slogan "Give
yourself something to smile about".
1993 was the
year of the "Five Star Feast"
with major promotions in ASDA, Sainsbury, Co-op, Safeway and several
pub chains. After that, we did some market research and determined
that late spring/early summer was the best time-frame for the Week.
This led to a gap in 1994, but we pulled all the stops out in 1995 with "A Fresh Start" running
from 21-28 May. That was the year we held the Sanatogen "Vegetarian
Hotel of the Year" competition; Tony Banks MP tabled an early
day motion to coincide with the Week and the McCartneys assisted
with some of the press work.
1996 was the year when we hit the headlines big-time, thanks to Railtrack
banning
our controversial "courgette" poster. The theme for that
Week was "The Taste of Things to Come" and
our surprise event was 27 oil rigs going veggie for the Week.
In 1997, the
year of our 150th anniversary, the theme was "A
Vegetarian Diet is Good for Everybody", we produced
recipe cards instead of a booklet and, for the first time, staged
Vegfest in the Castlefield Arena, Manchester at the end of the Week.
Things definitely got a bit surreal as staff and friends were transformed
into dancing, footballing and canoeing vegetables, and we broke
a world record with a 31 tonne salad but it was very good for publicity.
"Get
an Appetite for Life" was the catch-phrase for 1998
when we produced all sorts of recipes from beginners' to gourmet
and highlighted healthy lunch-boxes with a special sandwich-shaped
leaflet, we also organised another VegFest, which starred Stuart
Hamilton, the veggie body-builder.
1999 saw us teaming up with Gardening Which to do a veggie barbecue promotion
with a special leaflet, while the main theme for the Week was "Be
a Real Food Lover". We had a giant fork made as a symbol
for the week and its picture was projected onto the House of Commons.
2000 was a dynamic year! With a theme of "Veggies
on the Move" we concentrated on the provision of vegetarian
meals for travellers, on planes, trains, ferries, motorway service
stations and so on. We moved around the country ourselves too in
a specially modified catering bus to hand out leaflets to the public
and give local journalists a taste of veggie fare.
2001: Healthy
eating was to the fore in 2001. The theme was "Refresh
the Menu" and we produced a 24 page, full colour
recipe booklet to help people get started on a vegetarian
diet. For teenagers,
we produced a brand new activity pack called "Going Veggie
- Food for Life" full of recipes, nutrition information,
ideas on how to start a young veggies group and so on. This was
also the
year we instituted the Vegetarians Awards and held the very successful
Gala Presentation Ball with a celebrity auction at the Grosvenor
House Hotel, London. Mary McCartney attended to accept the Achievement
Award on behalf of her Mother, the late Lady Linda McCartney.
Other
vegetarian celebrities supporting the Ball included Jerome Flynn,
Emma Wray, Gary Webster, and Hazel O'Connor.
2002: As we
were proud to be the hosts of the 35th International Vegetarian
Congress
in
2002, and this Congress coincided with National Vegetarian Week,
we chose the theme "Food for all
our Futures" for the Week and featured the variety
of vegetarian cuisine worldwide in our literature. Sainsbury,
our retail sponsor,
printed recipe cards for customers and hosted a cookery demo by
tv chef, Richard Cawley, to launch the Week. The Mushroom Bureau
produced a new vegetarian/vegan recipe leaflet and the National
Trust a whole book of veggie recipes used in their famous houses.
One surprise event was when the firefighter colleagues of Big Brother's
Jonny Regan all decided to try veggie food for a week.
In 2003 we
issued the "Seven Days of Satisfaction" Challenge.
We created seven basic but delicious veggie meals and invited
everyone
from professional caterers to individuals at home to cook up interesting
variations of their own. We also enlisted over 2000 school catering
departments by providing them with a special new catering booklet
and recipe bookmarks the children could take home after enjoying
a veggie meal at school. We organised the great quiche cook-off
competition which appeared on BBC 2's The Nations Favourite Food
and the cast of The Bill took up the challenge, with the help
of Soho's veggie restaurant Plant.
In 2004 we
decided not to have a theme for NVW but instead concentrate on
promoting the Week itself and vegetarianism in general. The
Cordon Vert School created a delicious three-course gourmet dinner
which was widely publicised in the press. The Week was our most
successful yet with press circulation increasing by 20% to almost
100 million! We had over 200 businesses participate in the Week
- the most ever; and we conducted our largest ever distribution
of NVW promotional print with half a million leaflets distributed
throughout 17 cities nationwide. In addition two thousand schools
were mailed recipes, posters and bookmarks. Of these around 1500
schools requested additional resources. As these resources were
so popular we plan to mail recipes to ten thousand schools for
NVW 2005! Television presenter and former Brookside star Simon O'Brien
helped the Society to launch the Week at the People's History Museum
in
Manchester - the Week itself formed part of the museums 'From Butties
to Bhaji's' exhibition about the history of UK cuisine.
2005 saw us
build on the success of last year’s ‘multi-layered’ approach.
This, the thirteenth National Vegetarian Week, aimed to celebrate
vegetarianism in its broadest sense and prompt media discussion
on the topics of vegetarian food, health benefits, lifestyle and
commitment. Once again the Week surpassed all expectations and
press coverage almost doubled from a circulation of 100 million
in 2004 to a staggering 172 million! The runaway success of the
week was the release of our short film ‘Rude Food’.
Billed as ‘gastro-porn’, the steamy vegetable matter
certainly got the media hot under the collar and guaranteed us
some extremely high profile television coverage including Channel
4’s 7pm News, BBC1’s ‘Friday Night with Jonathan
Ross’, and BBC News 24. It was even picked out by famous
foodie, Nigella Lawson, in that weeks newspaper round-up on the
last ever edition of Breakfast with Frost. As well as lots of press
coverage a record number of businesses and local groups took part
in the week, with particular enthusiasm from contract caterers.
Quorn, the headline sponsors also rose to the challenge by doing
lots of their own activity, which included commissioning and photographing
new recipes to release to the press. Even the Palace of Westminster
had a special vegetarian dinner to highlight the Week and to encourage
MPs to support better vegetarian food labeling.
2006: Expanding on the huge success of 2005's National Vegetarian Week,
the fourteenth
NVW aimed to show how mainstream vegetarianism has
become. A multi-stranded PR campaign hit the media with a spoof
alien invasion theme under the slogan 'Vegetarianism.....it's nothing
to be scared of!' The Week made a big impact across all sectors
of the media - TV, press, radio and the internet. Circulation figures
were very impressive, reaching over 102 million. Highlights included
an excellent plug on BBC1's 'Saturday Kitchen' (the UK's most popular
TV food programme); a competition on BBC Radio 2's Steve Wright
Show; OK magazine highlighted the Week by running a veggie celebrity
story; plus there was coverage in the Daily Express, Reveal and
New! magazines. Vegetarian celebrities came out in force to support
NVW in special interviews and included pop singer, Heather Small;
actress, Jenny Seagrove; Scott Maslen of The Bill; and comedian,
Dave Spikey. In addition to these stories we also ran radio adverts
throughout the Week using the slogan and spoof alien invasion theme
on no less than five different regional radio stations including
Piccadilly Key 103, Century FM, Magic 1152, Smooth Fm and XFM.
Aside from the press activity over 4000 schools ordered veggie
school catering guides, 2500 other caterers ordered our brand new
'Serving Vegetarians' booklet which we produced to coincide with
the Week; and over 300 other organisations and businesses took
part by organising their own activities and events and as a result,
we were able to distribute 3000 posters and 100,000 postcards!
We were delighted that for the second year running Quorn were the
headline sponsor of the Week.
2007: In 2007 we celebrated
the environmental benefits of a vegetarian diet. The fifteenth
National Vegetarian Week smashed all previous
records for media coverage with total circulation reaching a staggering
280 million across newspapers, magazines and radio, not to mention
additional coverage on TV and online. The Week, sponsored by Cauldron
Foods, was a great success with many complimenting the beautiful
design that featured on posters and booklets. Highlights included
Dave Spikey appearing on ITV1’s Loose Women. Not only did
he name check the NVW sponsor Cauldron, while mentioning their
award winning sausages, he also chatted about how proud he is to
be vegetarian. In the press You Magazine (Mail on Sunday), the
Daily Mail, the Daily Express, Waitrose Food Illustrated, Sainsbury’s
Magazine, TV Hits and dozens of others featured vegetarian recipes
and ideas for eating seasonally. On a community level, across the
country hundreds of schools (over 450), businesses (over 300) and
local groups spread the vegetarian word and held events, info stalls
and special offers.
Back
to nvw history index
|
