With its “Foxy” brand of fresh produce, The Nunes Co. in Salinas, CA, has embarked on an ambitious and long range effort to increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables.

“We are taking a long-term view of what we can do at store level to increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables,” said Matt Seeley, Nunes’ vice president of marketing. “In our industry we should all be looking for ways to increase sales and consumption and I don’t think there is a better program to do that than juicing.”

Seeley said the juicing of fruits and vegetables is a growing trend and it is a great way to utilize both fruits and vegetables in a healthy way. He said devotees of the practice take a pound or two or fresh produce, juice it and drink it. “And they do that three or four times a day.”

What The Nunes Co. has done is to create several juicing recipes using the produce it grows and ships. Nunes been touting those recipes on its website and has also been sponsoring juicing demos at various retail outlets across the country. “We have done 64 demos to date,” said Seeley on the last day of June, “and we have another 20 planned for the rest of the summer. It is something we are looking at continuing in 2015.”

The produce company has been teaming up with a firm called Turnkey Promotions Inc. to stage these demonstrations throughout the country. A booth is set up at retail with a trained operator to offer juicing samples of various recipes to the store’s customers. The demo operator has been trained to in turn educate consumers about juicing whole vegetables. The operators utilize two recipes at each location to demonstrate how to use the entire commodity to prepare two different recipes. Seeley said that even veteran juicers tend to only use the liquid resulting from the juicing and discard the pulpy byproduct. “Our recipes create a great tasting juice and then use the byproduct in a recipe with cream cheese or humus to create a healthy spread. What could be better than to introduce a kid to a great tasting juice that combines celery and grapes and then use the byproduct in a healthy spread with cream cheese that they can put on their bagel.”

The Nunes executive said the demo program “has been very well-received by retailers. It offers education for their consumers that can lead to increased fruit and vegetable consumption. For us, it has opened doors and allows us to build good will with both consumers and retailers.”

Nunes has branded the program “Rejuicenate!” and it is featured on its “Foxy” brand website (www.foxy.com) and with in-store signage on the demo booth. The company’s website features more than a dozen juicing recipes as well as a handful of recipes for the pulp byproduct.