Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit has tapped the first day back for NSW school students to launch a new initiative aim at assisting parents in the fight for healthier eating habits for their children.

Titled 'Healthier Ways', the initiative and supporting campaign were developed in partnership with Dentsu Creative.

The initiative includes an online navigation tool designed to support parents seeking healthier routes in Western Sydney, responding to commissioned research from Zespri that found nearly three in ten (28%) parents are looking for healthier routes in Western Sydney.

On October 14th, a Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit pop-up was set up at Penrith’s Mondo Park, featuring QR codes on Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising, encouraging passersby to take the healthier way to their destination with Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit.

"Western Sydney is densely populated with fast food outlets, so we wanted to increase kids' exposure to healthy food choices. For us at Zespri, it’s such an important campaign that is closely related to our purpose as a brand, which is to help everyone thrive through the goodness of kiwifruit, and part of that is helping children form healthier eating habits from a young age. Now, we’re giving families the choice to go the Healthier Way with our online navigation map tool and a chance to grab a healthy fruit snack on their way via our Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit pop-up," said General Manager, Global Marketing at Zespri, KokHwee Ng.

Zespri is a company wholly owned by current and former kiwifruit growers, with a global team of 850 based in Mount Maunganui and throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas & Australia. In 2023/24, Zespri supplied 164.2 million trays of kiwifruit to consumers in more than 50 markets, and recorded global operating revenue of NZ$4.21 billion.

"Parents are faced with the pressure of fast food when they commute with their kids in Western Sydney. It might seem like a functional navigation tool, but we’ve incorporated out of car entertainment along the way to give kids healthy mascots too. There are ‘backstreet billboards’ for taking the Healthier Way, a ‘healthy pop-up’ for people to pick up a SunGold Kiwifruit, and even a few life-size KiwiBrothers mascots dancing along a healthier route," said Creative Directors at Dentsu, Zac Pritchard and V. Wassim Kanaan.