Veg Power has announced that its highly popular and effective dietary health campaign ‘Eat Them to Defeat Them’ is returning to schools next month. Running for eight consecutive years, the campaign – sponsored by Sainsbury’s – will return with a fresh and exciting new creative theme ‘Veg Hunters’ that encourages children to hunt out, find and eat vegetables. Other key developments for 2026, include two brand new components that have been sponsored by Tilda – The ‘Eat Them to Defeat Them Schools Challenge’ and ‘Veg Hunter Champions’ role for Y5&6 pupils.
The Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign, which costs only 50p per child, was launched in 2019 to tackle one of the major public health issues in the UK – poor vegetable consumption. 80% of children are not eating enough vegetables and, worryingly, a third of kids are eating less than a portion per day.1 Last year’s campaign revealed that when children take part in the programme more than once, 60% of their parents reported a lasting and sustained increase in vegetable consumption equating to an average of over one more portion of veg per day.2
The campaign features a fun, engaging and highly creative concept designed for children, that inspires kids to eat more veg in school and to continue the behaviour at home. Uniquely the campaign brings together a huge alliance including celebrities, supermarkets, chefs, schools, communities and families.
Evaluation data also confirmed the popularity of the campaign with 93% of parents, 89% of children and 94% of schools wanting to take part again. Eat Them to Defeat Them 2026 is set to reach 300,000 pupils from 1,000 schools across the UK bringing the total of children benefiting from this award winning and behaviour-changing campaign to over 1.8 million. This year’s campaign has been sponsored by Sainsbury’s with additional funding from local authorities, school caterers and local vegetable producers.
New for 2026, the Eat Them to Defeat Them Schools’ Challenge replaces The Caterers’ Challenge and encourages, recognises and rewards a whole school approach – a celebration of schools and caterers working together to improve children’s dietary health. Gold, silver and bronze cash prizes are up for grabs, with the gold winners set to receive £1,500. In addition, caterers will be invited to submit their best rice and veg recipe to win a special Tilda Challenge prize.
The second new addition – Veg Hunter Champions – has been created in response to feedback highlighting that increased levels of engagement were needed for the oldest pupils who are likely to have experienced the campaign several times through repeat participation. The Veg Hunter Champions will become advocates for veg within their schools and learn why eating more veg, particularly a rainbow of veg, is so important. They’ll also learn how dietary health campaigns, such as Eat Them to Defeat Them, can lead to changing behaviour. Activities for these children started in mid January and include the coordination of the ‘Great Veg Vote’ to find out their school’s favourite vegetables and the ones their fellow pupils need to eat more of. The Veg Hunter Champions role will benefit the pupils, the wider school community and their families.
Commenting on this year’s campaign, Dan Parker, chief executive, Veg Power, said: “Eat Them to Defeat Them has encouraged children from across the UK to eat more veg not only at school but importantly when they are back home with their families. Our data shows it is creating lasting healthy eating habits that are improving not only children’s diets but their family’s too. We’ve listened to feedback and are returning with a revamped campaign for 2026 including the Eat Them to Defeat Them Schools Challenge. We know that the campaign is most effective in schools when the whole school gets behind it – teaching staff, catering teams, the pupils and parent/carer community. Everyone plays their part in improving pupils’ dietary health. We can’t wait to see this year’s entries and, importantly, for all the children to benefit from the whole school coming together in support of the campaign.”
