Raising awareness with Tropical Sun ACLT ‘Backing the Community’ campaign
Can a tin of Tropical Sun Crunchy Coconut Peanuts save a life? Well, the tropical food and drinks brand is hoping to make just such a difference, with the launch of an on-pack awareness campaign, in partnership with the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (ACLT).
Thousands of Tropical Sun’s Crunchy Coconut Peanuts will feature a bright yellow fold-out information sticker, which highlights the need for more people to join the blood, organ and bone marrow donor registers. On shelves across the UK from September, the ‘Backing the Community’ sticker is prominently placed on the re-sealable lid of each tin. It is aiming to encourage more people to think about and openly discuss the issues around donation, how it affects people’s lives and find out how individuals can make a difference and ‘Back their communities’.
There is a particular shortage of donors from ethnic communities in the UK, which the ACLT campaigns to address. Currently, just 1% of blood donors are Black and just 1.5% of organ donors are Asian. However, Black people are 3 times more likely to need a kidney transplant than a white British person and Asians are 3 – 4 times more likely to need an organ transplant than a white British person.
Approximately 1,000 people die waiting for an organ transplant each year and currently there are 600 black people awaiting an organ transplant in the UK. With such stark and sobering figures, there is still a lot of work to be done to get more people engaged, said Beverley De Gale, co-founder of the ACLT.
“When we are out on the street campaigning, we get a lot of support and people seem to be a lot more aware now than they have ever been. However, there is still a disparity between that support, and the actual number of people that sign-up to the donor registers. The first step is to raise awareness of the issues and get people talking to each other openly. When friends and families sit down together to share a tin of Tropical Sun Coconut Peanuts, that is the perfect time for them to have an honest debate about their concerns, and hopefully get involved to make a difference.”
Jag Singh, brand manager at Tropical Sun said about the campaign: “We feel extremely privileged to be working with the ACLT. As a brand specialising in world and ethnic foods, we have a very loyal customer which crosses all ethnic groups in the UK. Our coconut peanuts are the perfect product for this campaign, as they appeal to so many different people and are mostly enjoyed with friends and family over a natter. We really hope this campaign gets more people talking and taking action in support of the work the ACLT do, and ‘Back their communities’.”
The campaign is running from September until Christmas 2013, across the UK.
For more information, you can visit www.aclt.org or www.tropicalsunfoods.com/community/ to find out more.
