Supermarket giant Woolworths has announced plans to offer free food to children, completely catch-free. Under a new national program, kids will be able to pick up fresh seasonal fruits and start munching away while their parents shop. Items on the menu include mandarins, apples, pears and bananas sourced from local farmers and suppliers. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Fruit image from Shutterstock
The Free Fruit for Kids program does exactly what it says on the tin: children are invited to eat seasonal fruits from clearly marked stands. All free fruit is Australian grown and allegedly of the same quality as the stuff you have to pay for. The rollout follows a successful trial in South Australia.
According to Woolworths, the program has been implemented in a bid to help children eat their recommended two serves of fruit a day and “inspire a healthier Australia.”
“Free Fruit for Kids is not only a great way to encourage healthy eating habits but also an easy way to keep the little ones occupied whilst shopping,” Woolworths managing director Brad Banducci said in a statement. “We know that a trip to the supermarket can be a busy time and the free fruit initiative is just one way we are hoping to give parents and carers a helping hand.”
While the more cynical among you may see this as a relatively low-cost stunt to reel in more customers, we think it should be commended all the same. It’s certainly a better proposition than crappy collector cards or dominoes pieces. (As much as kids love that stuff.)
Woolworths hasn’t laid out the rules for the new scheme yet. Presumably, the deal will be limited to one item per child — otherwise, parents could just load up their trolleys from the free food section. We’re also unsure how the fruit-washing situation works.
The free fruit stands should be appearing in Woolworths’ 961 stores in the coming weeks. I personally can’t wait to shove a banana into the squalling mouth of my offspring — everybody wins!
Comments
15 responses to “Dealhacker: Woolworths Is Giving Free Fruit To Kids”
This has been the best inclusion, it has made me wish to shop at Woolworths. The quietest, quickest shop with children!
They’ve been bleeding customers for quite some time, I don’t shop there as much as I used to and I certainly don’t use their butcher. Call me a cynic, but this is just a cheap way to get mothers into the store.
Their whole business revolves around getting people into the store, yes.
As I indicated, they are “bleeding” customers and this is a cheap (read cynical) way of clawing them back. I’m hoping they either, change their “mega profits aren’t enough” ways, or go under and let someone else fill the void.
Coles will be the only one to fill the void and we will all be worse off for it.
I’ll keep shopping at Woolworths as I’ve worked out a 10% off everything deal and I don’t think I could get that with Coles.
I actually doubt that they will go under, but I also hope they get their shit in one sock, because as it is, their customers are suffering.
Having said that, how did you manage “a deal” for 10% off? 🙂
Our local insurance company sells woolworths gift cards for 95% of actual value. So we use them for all grocery and petrol purchasing.
My wife also had a part time gig there quite awhile ago (on indefinite leave after having our 2nd child) so we both were able to get a staff card from that. Combining the two gives an almost 10% discount on food.
For petrol, if you spend $5 in store, you get 8c off per liter along with your staff card, so we buy our milk there as it’s not more expensive than the regular supermarket.
you can get 5% off by paying using Wish Gift cards, which you can get from cashrewards dot com. (same deal as your insurer). I use this for Caltex and works out to be cheaper than 4 cents off docket.
You can combine them! 5% off and 4c off per litre. They often have better deals if you buy stuff in their little store that as well – so grab your weekly milk needs too.
Woolworths is considering both parents, and children here and it’s fantastic!!
I doubt they will keep it going, it’s just a stunt at the moment. I give it six months at the most.
Pffft. I have always given my kids fruit off the shelf(grapes or strawberries etc) to munch on while i take them shopping at supermarkets. It’s the cost of doing business with parents.
I worked in the produce department of a store many years ago. My manager once said “If a customer asks about a fruit, cut it up and let them try some”.
I did this once, and only once because as soon as I did, I was swamped be customers.
The stores were I live used to give fruit away to the kids when I was primary school aged so it’s good to hear it’s coming back.
That’s also commonly known as…stealing…
Woolworths West Lakes (SA) has always had fruit for the children to help themselves….just at 50c per piece…..which I think was the honour system to an extent anyway so its probably not really that new an initiative for them…..just some less admin balancing the fruit till so to speak. As long as they keep feeding my lot the smiley fritz in the Deli section I will be happy!!!!