Co-op Guide to Dating

East of England Co-op

| Media relations

Brief

Handle the media strategy for the launch of a new food waste initiative from retailer the East of England Co-op.

What Pier did

Pier took the story to the mainstream national and global media, achieving blanket coverage across multiple major TV news programmes and front pages.

Impact

The noise around the move prompted other retailers to tackle their food waste and the initiative scooped Waste Not Want Not at The Grocer Gold Awards.

Overview

Pier implemented a savvy media relations strategy to secure blanket national and international coverage on the launch of the Co-op Guide to Dating, a new food waste initiative from the East of England Co-op.

Highlights included multiple national newspaper front pages, reports on almost all major national TV channels and hundreds of broadcast, online and print pieces.

Story

One of our proudest moments for long-time client the East of England Co-op was handling the media announcement of its new food waste policy – The Co-op Guide to Dating. The scheme helped tackle food waste by selling food past its best before date for just 10p.

This was a pivotal move, with the East of England Co-op becoming the first major retailer to introduce such a scheme.

Taking the story from trade to mainstream media, our exclusive in industry stalwart The Grocer propelled onto Radio 4’s The Today programme. From there, we secured blanket media coverage. From The Times and The Telegraph, to BBC News, ITV News and Sky News, all major UK news outlets covered the story.

We helped the Co-op’s Joint Chief Executive navigate multiple broadcast interviews, and worked closely with the Co-op’s press office to field a myriad of media requests.

The coverage from this story cemented the East of England Co-op as a pioneer in tackling food waste and forced other retailers to act by introducing their own policies and schemes.

The icing on the cake was scooping the Waste Not Want Not Award at the Grocer Gold Awards, an award-entry also copy-written by Pier.

Do you have an announcement to make? Talk to Pier to maximise the potential from your news.