HOUSTON – Brighter Bites, a nonprofit organization that delivers fresh fruits and vegetables, nutrition education resources, and culinary tools directly into families’ hands, is excited to be working with Zespri™ Kiwifruit as a key produce partner for the upcoming 2022-2023 school year.
Through this partnership, Zespri Kiwifruit will provide product for Brighter Bites’ programming in NYC, Washington DC as well as south and central California, supply kiwi nutrition education, recipes and coupons through the upcoming school season, and support national programming through a monetary donation. In addition, the two organizations will also host a kiwi art challenge for students to participate in for a chance to win prizes.
“Our partnership with Zespri Kiwifuit allows us to offer our families not only more delicious fruit options in their produce boxes, but also a fun, interactive challenge to engage and encourage participation,” said Brighter Bites CEO Rich Dachman. “This creative activity aligns perfectly with our mission, and we look forward to seeing all the one-of-a-kind artwork from students and their families.”
Furthermore, Zespri Kiwifruit will also be a highlighted donor for Brighter Bites’ 10th year birthday celebration, which will honor the nonprofit organization in its efforts to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to communities throughout the country.
“Our purpose is to help people, communities and the environment around the world thrive through the goodness of kiwifruit and being able to help support underserved families with our tasty and nutritious Zespri™ SunGold™ kiwi and encourage healthier habits is a great demonstration of this,” said Jeanne Wilson, Zespri Kiwifruit’s head of marketing for the North America market. “We couldn’t be more honored to join the mission of the Brighter Bites organization and look forward to celebrating their anniversary and reflecting on the positive change they’ve helped drive over the last ten years.”
Since 2012, Brighter Bites has grown to serve families and students in food deserts across nine major metropolitan areas and over 50 million pounds of fresh produce. Zespri Kiwifruit’s partnership will enable the organization to continue providing for underserved communities and expand its programming throughout the country.
To learn more about Brighter Bites, visit brighterbites.org, or follow the organization on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or YouTube.
# # #
About Brighter Bites:
Brighter Bites is a nonprofit that creates communities of health through fresh food with the goal of changing behavior among children and their families to prevent obesity and achieve long-term health. Brighter Bites is an evidence-based, multi-component elementary school, preschool, and summer camp program that utilizes reliable access to fruits and vegetables, nutrition education, and consistent exposure to recipes and messages that feature fresh food. Since 2012, Brighter Bites has provided over 50 million pounds of produce and millions of nutrition education materials to more than 475,000 individuals (including teachers) in Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area, and Southwest Florida. In February 2021 Brighter Bites expanded its programming to Salinas, California. To learn more about Brighter Bites visit www.brighterbites.org.
About Zespri™ Kiwifruit
Zespri TM is 100 percent owned by current and former kiwifruit growers and has a global team of 850 based in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand and throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas. Our purpose is to help people, communities and the environment thrive through the goodness of kiwifruit, and we work with 2,800 growers in New Zealand and 1,500 growers offshore to provide consumers with fresh, healthy and great-tasting Zespri TM Green, Zespri TM SunGold TM and Zespri TM Organic Kiwifruit. Zespri TM is committed to sustainability, with areas of improvement identified right through the supply chain including our pledge that by 2025 we will use 100 percent reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging, do more to help the environment, and to become carbon positive by 2035. Please visit zespri.com/en-US.
