HERE'S AN EASY WAY TO GET THE KIDS TO EAT MORE FRUIT AND VEG!

A staggering 55 percent of children struggle to identify common vegetables, with less than one in 10 meeting the daily recommended intake of both fruit and veg, a national survey shows.

And adults are also falling short, with only 6.1% meeting the recommended daily intake of both fruits and vegetables, the ABS National Health Survey found.

To champion the importance of fruit and vegetable consumption, Perfection Fresh, which grows and supplies some of the nation's favourite Australian fresh fruit and vegetables, has joined forces with Sesame Street to encourage lunchbox-ready fresh produce consumption. 

The specially curated product range for this promotion features the fun and playful Sesame Street characters on packaging including Qukes Baby Cucumbers with Cookie Monster, sweet Petite tomatoes with Elmo, Perfection Berries with Abby, and Little Gem bananas with Big Bird.

Luke Gibson, Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer at Perfection Fresh, emphasised the impact of character branding on children's food preferences.

“Kids are more emotionally connected to food with familiar characters. Research has shown that kids are more likely to eat fresh fruit and vegetables when they see familiar friends on the packaging encouraging healthy habits," he said.

Sesame Workshop, the creators of Sesame Street, is a not-for-profit organisation, with all proceeds from the sale of every Sesame Street product going into outreach projects around the world, from Syria to Afghanistan.

They also do outreach work in Australia, and use a number of Australia production companies and talent.