The Blend for Everyday Eating – 2024 Campaign Launches

AMGA Members Update

It’s Back-to-School time, which means schedules are about to fill up with science projects, after-school sports, homework, band practice, carpooling, and school discos.

Is your head spinning yet?

While life may seem chaotic and unpredictable, your meals don’t have to be.

We’ve taken the guesswork out of meal planning and rounded up a collection of easy, healthy mushroom dishes the whole family will love! (No school-age kids at home? No problem. You’ll still enjoy these simple yet delicious recipes!)

Tips to start:

  • Cut down time in the kitchen by purchasing pre-cut veg.
  • Blend mushrooms with meat to make meals go further (plus boost flavour and nutrition).
  • Opt for meals you can make ahead and freeze – freeing up your time during the week!

Creamy Mushroom & Bacon Triangles

Golden, flaky filo pastry filled with a creamy mix of mushrooms, crispy bacon, parmesan, and herbs. These bite-sized beauties are perfect for lunchboxes or after-school snacks. Best served warm, but just as delicious cold!

Teriyaki Mushroom Sushi Rolls

 Swap out seafood for umami-rich teriyaki mushrooms in these fresh and flavourful sushi rolls. Paired with creamy avocado and crisp cucumber, they’re a perfect lunchbox or snack-time winner!

 

Mushroom, Cheese & Vegemite Scrolls

A savoury Aussie twist on a classic scroll! Buttery dough (or easy puff pastry) rolled with umami-packed mushrooms, melty cheese, and a hit of Vegemite. Perfect for lunchboxes or an arvo snack.

 

Mushroom Omelette Wrap

A protein-packed, veggie-loaded brekkie wrap featuring fluffy eggs, savoury mushrooms, parmesan, and fresh greens. Quick to make and perfect for eating on the go!

 

Anthony Leddin

The AMGA's Mushrooms + Mince = The Blend campaign has launched.

The focus for this year is on "The Blend for Everyday Eating” and will help ensure mushrooms are top of mind for everyday meaty meals, ensuring the relevancy all throughout the year, as we have identified the need to extend (or creep) our higher volume seasonal periods.

The Blend is a $125,000 campaign, separate to the marketing initiatives of Hort Innovation. This year’s campaign has been co-funded by the AMGA ($100,000) and Hort Innovation ($25,000).

The Blend – Campaign Overview

The 2024 Blend campaign is designed to enhance the momentum from last year's campaign and continue to educate Australian consumers about the concept of substituting minced meat for finely diced mushrooms, in our everyday meaty meals. By substituting mince for mushrooms, meals are more cost effective (comparative to the cost of mince), more sustainable, and more delicious.

The campaign is targeted in particular to educate families and seniors about health benefits of using a mushroom + mince blend.

The objective is to increase consumers purchase intent for mushrooms, with the ultimate goal for mushrooms to be considered as an essential ingredient to make all your favourite minced meat dishes taste better and be more nutritious. This will be delivered via a focus on:

  • Substituting minced meat for mushrooms. Mushrooms + Mince = The Blend
  • Leveraging meat reducers, inspire families into category and provide another way high mushroom users can consume on one more meal occasion.
  • Emphasising nutritional benefits and better taste.
  • Inspiring with blended recipes to show ease of adding mushrooms to any minced meat meal

Emphasising the cost savings of mushrooms vs mince.

Campaign Highlights:

Along with a robust digital marketing and PR strategy, the 2024 omni-channel campaign features an exciting competition for mass reach, partnerships with digital outlets, an Aldi on-pack sticker promotion, refreshed website and new Blenditarian recipes, and thanks to Hort Innovations additional funding, an extensive influencer engagement campaign.

Here are some of the most exciting campaign highlights to look out for:

1. Scan to Win a $5000 Kitchen Makeover:

This competition is designed to capture the attention of home cooks, to enter to win a $5,000 Kitchen Makeover (with five $250 gift cards for runners up).

To be in the draw to win, entrants will click am online link or scan a QR code instore, and tell us in 25 words or less which is their favourite Blenditarian recipe.

Once completed, entrants will be taken on an educational journey via email and social media retargeting, to ensure they understand the benefits of the Mushroom + Mince = The Blend cooking technique, and are inspired with delicious, blended recipes.

Why Mushrooms Are a Great Choice for Growing Minds

Mushrooms contain a unique blend of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that the whole family needs. Just one serving of mushrooms (3-4 medium button mushrooms) provides a quarter (25%) of your daily needs for essential vitamins like riboflavin, biotin, niacin, and pantothenic acid, while also contributing to folate intake.

Mushrooms are often celebrated as a superfood, delivering a powerful nutritional punch that’s different from common vegetables. Why? Because mushrooms aren’t actually vegetables – they’re fungi! This unique classification means they offer an entirely different range of nutrients, making them an essential addition to any diet.

A serving of mushrooms (3 mushrooms/100g) provides more than 20% of the daily needs for six essential nutrients: riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, biotin, copper, and selenium. Plus, if mushrooms are exposed to sunlight for just 15 minutes, they can provide 100% of your daily vitamin D requirements—something no vegetable can match!

CHECK OUT OUR OTHER EASY DELIVIOUS MUSHROOM RECIPES HERE