Peas to the nation!

The Yes Peas! campaign has been storming ahead with its first appearance at the BBC Good Food Show, NEC, the country's biggest consumer food event, last week.

Backed by the pea growers and freezers (Ardo, Salvesons, Unilever), the aim of the campaign is to get the nation eating more frozen peas, and was launched in May at Divertimenti Cookery Theatre, London,

The Yes Peas! stand was in the Red Tractor pavilion, and a stream of willing helpers handed out 3000 pea and goat cheese tarts (made by Television's Flying Cook Rachel Green), 4170 samples of cooked peas with melted butter and black pepper, and 25,000 recipe leaflets.

Rachel Green cooked daily with peas in the Great British Food Theatre, compered by food writer Thane Prince, to a packed audience of 300 people each time.

Rachel cooked three dishes of the twelve seasonal recipes which she has devised specially for the campaign.

The BBC Good Food Show followed hot on the heels of the fourth annual Grab 5! School Menu Challenge Finals, which is sponsored by the pea growers and freezers. The Challenge, run in conjunction with Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, asks secondary schoolchildren across the country to devise lunch for primary schoolchildren using the magic five pieces of fruit and vegetable, of which one ingredient must be peas.

The Finals were held for the second year running in the state-of-the-art international kitchen at Thomas Danby College, Leeds, and Yorkshire Television presenter Gaynor Barnes came to congratulate the Finalists.

The campaign continues to run full steam ahead, with its focus on the consumer press. Seasonal recipes are appearing regularly in high circulationpublications, and more to follow in the coming year.