UN Goal Number 2 is “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture”. Is it well known that the consumption of vegetables is significantly beneficial for the good of the planet and humanity. From reducing carbon emissions as an alternative vs other types of food, to all the cognitive and physical benefits they have for human health. This campaign is encouraging eating vegetables to one of the biggest community on earth: the gaming community, which is now 1/3 of the worlds population according to Newzoo Report.

“Good food” has different meanings around the world. One of them is adding more vegetables to the daily average diet. The world is already having a big conversation about how human diet affects the planet. In that conversation, vegetables play a crucial role, but almost half of the world doesn’t eat enough vegetables (source: UN Summit). There has always been bias against them because they’re often perceived as bland, lame and tasteless. We needed to find a way to boost their perception. For this reason, Knorr is striving to give good food a fighting change.

Unilever has been driving an ambitious sustainability agenda for over two decades, aligned with the UN goals. Yet, in the face of ever-growing economic, environmental and social challenges, it is evolving its the approach regarding 4 specific goals: climate, nature, plastics and livelihood. More information here https://www.unilever.com/sustainability/

On the other hand, KNORR specifically is on a mission around the world to promote healthier behaviours regarding nutrition. Home cooking, eating more vegetables and finding alternative sources of protein, just to name a few (this is different in each region of the world). The brands proposition is ‘Making good food irresistible’, and that translates into what the actual range of more than 20000 products actually do.

Knorr is the second biggest Unilever brand. With more than 20000 different products around the world, the brand is on a mission to make good food irresistible. We needed to translate that message to a younger generation (GenZ and 20/30yo) in a cool and modern way, a huge challenge for a home cooking brand.

Despite the world already talking about how diet affects the environment and human health, and the proven fact that vegetables are significantly beneficial for both, there’s still bias against them, because they’re often perceived as bland, lame and tasteless. This bias is even present in the gaming industry, which is worth USD 217,06 Billion according to Game View Research. In more than 20 of the world’s top videogames, vegetables are less rewarding than other food, perpetuating the bias in new generations. As Knorr champions good food around the world, it needed to step in and make a call to the biggest game publishers.

Knorr levels up vegetables in the real world, so that’s what we did in the virtual world too. We created #ModTheVeg: a movement to power up veggies in video games. We partnered with gamers and developers and created 14 different mods (mod: short for modification) in some of the top world gaming titles. The mods turned veggies into skins, weapons, armours, vehicles characters and all kinds of different items and rewards that gave players advantage within the games. The movement was kickstarted by NINJA (world’s top Twitch streamer) and promoted by top streamers in 10 different countries. The movement became a petition signed by more than 20K people around the world and sent to some of the biggest game publishers.

The bias against vegetables has been present for many generations, and today’s youth is no exception. However, GenZ’s are more open to adopt new behaviours to improve their health and how they interact with the planet. Also, the gaming world is one of the biggest spaces where they interact and are influenced, no matter where they live or which language they speak. Gaming + GenZ’s were the perfect audience and platform. We found out that this bias is even present in more than 20 games: vegetables are less rewarding than other kinds of food: (e.g. In Fortnite meat gives you 15HP vs Lettuce giving you 10HP).

14 mods created by gamers and developers that power up veggies in Fortnite, Minecraft, Skyrim and GTA.

Website: downloable mods, know more about the movement, petition to end the disparity of vegetables in gaming.

Campaign launching the movement, addressing the issue and showing some the mods (hero film, IG, Tiktok, Twitch).

NINJA kickstart the movement. Teased it on social media, then played our mods during two livestreams addressing the issue, the movement and the petition.

Top gamers from 7 countries amplified our message (to an audience in more than 30 countries around the world).

Press release sent to gaming and nutrition media, talking about Knorr’s mission to make good food irresistible (in gaming).

Events where created in Mexico, South Africa, Canada and Phillipines.

The petition still going, but when we reached 20.000 signatures, we turned it into an official proposal to Epic Games, Activision Blizzard and Mojang Studios.

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+10K played the mods for 19 minute on average.

+20K signed the petition (and counting).

+262K people watched the livestreams.

+1500 press articles worldwide.

+54M full views of the hero film + cutdowns.

+9% brand awareness.

+22% gaming association.

+157M Impressions

+26K hours of content watched in just 2 days.

The petition was signed by more than 20000 people around the world. Our ideal goal is that some of the top game publishers respond to it first, and help us to make a real change within any given video game.

Unilever’s ambition is to reach net zero across its value chain by 2039, and their focus is on reducing our emissions by 2030 in line with what science says is needed. With around 98% of their value chain emissions occurring outside their own operations, they’re influencing their supply partners, including advertising agencies as every campaign they roll out in the world.

More details are in their updated Climate Transition Action Plan (CTAP) (https://www.unilever.com/sustainability/climate/our-climate-transition-action-plan/). It focuses on ten action areas where they can best drive positive impact by 2030. Some of them are:

- Growing our Supplier Climate Programme to help key suppliers become climate leaders.

- Investing in deforestation-free supply chains.

- Reformulating products to use lower-emissions ingredients without compromising performance.

Short term goals:

- In Operations: Reduce absolute operational GHG emissions (Scope 1 & 2) by 100% by 2030 from a 2015 baseline (including communication & marketing operations).

- In Value Chain (energy and industrial): Reduce absolute Scope 3 energy and industrial GHG emissions[a] by 42% by 2030 from a 2021 baseline.

- In Value chain (forest, land and agriculture) Reduce absolute Scope 3 forest, land and agriculture (FLAG) GHG emissions[b] by 30.3% by 2030 from a 2021 baseline.

Every change will address barriers to faster emissions reduction, in each of their ten action areas and overall.