Two recent funding awards have given a boost to the promotion of British food products.

A three-year generic milk promotion initiative worth £7.5m has been launched by the Milk Marketing Forum to promote the benefits of milk consumption. The forum, a consortium of leading dairy companies, has secured almost £2.5m of their funds from the EU with the rest coming from forum members.

In what will be the biggest generic milk promotion for years the “Make Mine Milk” campaign will use posters, press, online media and PR to promote liquid milk, aimed at families with a focus on young people aged 15 to 24-years old.

In addition, the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) has secured permission from the EU to use around £500,000 of levy payments to raise awareness of the Red Tractor Logo on British foods.  The mark, which appears on more than £8bn worth of food products, will be promoted to consumers by delivering a message about the quality and high production standards associated with its use.

Recent figures released from TNS show that apple sales are falling due to increased competition from other fruits. In the year to May sales fell 3.2% whilst sales of peaches, apricots and cherries all increased.

Latest figures from the Horticultural Trades Association suggest that there are signs of recovery in the UK garden market, with garden centres leading the way. Whilst the association’s Garden Industry Monitor (GIM)  showed total sales of garden products down by around 10% in 2008, the first half of 2009 seems to have recovered the position held a year earlier.

Citing significant interest in ‘Grow Your Own’ (GYO) and better weather as the reasons for the change, the HTA is “cautiously optimistic” that the garden industry is well-placed as the UK economy turns towards recovery.

Whilst most land-based workers are well used to working in freezing temperatures come the winter it seems that midlands footballers are of a slightly less robust disposition. After having to cancel matches last year because of the frost Birmingham City FC has just spent half a million pounds installing under pitch heating and a new pitch profile. The work was completed in only four weeks and now Birmingham’s players will be able to continue playing no matter how chilly it gets. Not too sure about the carbon footprint implications of heating a field mind you!

Following our earlier story about vertical farming it seems that developers are using the same principle to provide garden and amenity areas. Ropemaker, a new 20 storey development that has recently been completed in North London, has nearly half a hectare of planted roof terraces on three staggered levels, one of which is 16 floors up! The building itself was completed last November and planting of the green areas started in the spring and was finished in late June, costing around £1 million and even extending to planting trees.

Despite the call to “Buy British” it seems that UK supermarkets are leaving British plums to rot this year whilst stocking their shelves with imported products. Despite a bumper British harvest, supermarkets are stocking imported fruit blaming the unpredictable British weather and saying that they have to make contingency plans to import fruit in case the British harvest is poor and cannot now change these plans.

A recent IGD report has shown that consumers are increasingly turning their back on organic produce because of the economic climate. Organic spend has remained static although the IGD say that they are confident that the situation is a dip rather than a collapse and that organic consumption will increase again once the economy starts to recover.

The Horticultural Trades Association has just published the results of its 14th annual salary survey, which reveals that more than 40% of businesses in the nursery and garden centre sector have seen their pay frozen in 2009.

The survey also reveals that a number of businesses have agreed pay cuts with their employees, with the largest reported to be 10%, with others reducing between 3-5%.

Somerset-based Blackdown Horticultural Consultants have been getting rather more attention than normal in recent weeks as around 10 million ladybirds have descended upon them. The swarm, the largest in ten years, has settled on four fields of sedum grown for eco-roofing. Apparently, the ladybirds have a habit of crawling all over you, described as “a bit daunting”…

A government proposal aiming to turn Britain into a low-carbon economy aims to create more than 400,000 new ‘green’ jobs by 2015, according to a plan presented by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and Government ministers. The White Paper will plough nearly £100 million into developing renewable energy sources and, in the process, create scores of new ‘green’ career opportunities. The government’s goal is to supply up to 40 per cent of Britain’s electricity from low-carbon energy sources, such as wind and water power, by 2020.

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Key job opportunities created by the proposal include the construction of 7000 on- and offshore wind turbines by 2020; the installation of ’smart meters’ in more than 26 million homes by that date; and undertaking more than seven million ‘pay as you save’ energy makeovers to British householders. Smart meters will allow families to see exactly how much energy they are using; it will cost nearly £7 billion to do so. The ‘pay as you save’ system will allow money to be lent to families to implement energy-efficient home improvements such as solar panels.

In addition, ministers proposed the implementation of a green transport system with the introduction of an electric train network and low-carbon buses, and offering discounts on the purchase of hybrid electric cars.

Plans such as the “Wave Hub”, a socket on the seabed near Cornwall that is connected into a power grid to allow large-scale testing of wave power. Carrying out and implementing the various energy-saving plans will create hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout Britain.

Ministers disclosed that in order to fund the “green energy revolution”, millions of British families will be hit with a £92 additional annual levy on their fuel bills by 2020, though the UK Energy Centre predicts the increase could be more than twice the official estimate of £92 per family. Energy companies will be directed to subsidise rising bill costs for the poor and elderly, by charging more for wealthier customers.

Ed Miliband noted that creating jobs to implement the green measures would pay for themselves in the long term, as well as protecting Britain from the possible damage of fluctuating global oil and gas prices. ‘We could become more and more dependent on that and quite insecure in our energy,’, said Miliband. ‘Or we can go for more homegrown energy which will also cost, but I actually think the costs will be less in the end, because the costs of climate change if we don’t stop it are going to be enormous.’

On the other hand, TaxPayers’ Alliance reasearch director Matthew Sinclair claims wind farms have not illustrated their ability to deliver energy in a reliable fashion and questioned whether the government was pushing the agenda ‘to line the pockets of renewable energy firms.’ Consumer Focus energy expert Jonathan Stearn also noted that the ‘cost should be shared with Government and industry, who will also benefit from these measures.’