Learning from our trans-Tasman neighbours: A vegetable grower study tour to New Zealand
9 December 2025
Harvesting Innovation: Global AgTech Meets Australian Broccoli and Lettuce Growers
9 December 2025
BY MICHELLE LAUSEN
PROGRAM MANAGER, PLUS ONE SERVE BY 2030
The vegetable consumption crisis is hurting growers and consumers alike. Despite world-class growers, supply chains and retailers, and consumers who want to eat a healthier diet, vegetable consumption has dropped to record lows – with serious consequences for our health, our economy, and the future of our growers.
The National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (September 2025) revealed that only 6.5 percent of Australians meet the recommended vegetable intake of 5-plus serves per day. On average, Australians are consuming just 1.8 serves per person per day – less than half the recommended amount. This isn’t just a dietary problem; it’s a national health emergency and an economic issue. Lower consumption means billions in lost value, declining grower returns, and rising public-health costs. As vegetable intake falls, chronic diseases increase – along with hospital admissions, malnutrition in older Australians, and shorter life expectancy for younger generations.
Meanwhile, vegetable growers are struggling to sustain operations under rising costs and diminishing returns. The AUSVEG Industry Sentiment Report (September 2025) revealed that two in five growers are considering leaving the industry in the next year, due to these ongoing challenges.
A bold national target: Plus One Serve by 2030
To turn the tide, AUSVEG has launched the Plus One Serve of Vegetables by 2030 program – a bold, evidence-based national initiative to lift average consumption by one extra 75-gram serve per person per day by 2030.
The program represents one of the most ambitious behaviour-change efforts ever undertaken in Australia. It’s led by AUSVEG and supported by the government, researchers, health professionals, and industry partners through Hort Innovation’s Frontiers Healthy Living initiative.
The potential returns are extraordinary. For every $1 invested, economic modelling projects a $12.30 return, generating $4.7 billion in total benefits by 2030 – including $3.3 billion in supply-chain value and $1.4 billion in public-health savings.
But real change will only come through coordinated action across every setting where food decisions are made – retail, home, and education – beginning with the setting that influences most vegetable purchases: retail.
Why retail matters
Retail is the critical bridge between supply and consumption. Supermarkets, green grocers and fresh markets account for around 82 percent of vegetable sales in Australia. What Australians see, value, and choose in-store determines what they eat at home.
That’s why retail is the first national focus for Plus One Serve. If we can nudge shopper habits here, we can transform the entire vegetable economy.
Introducing the Retail Setting Action Plan
The Retail Setting Action Plan (RSAP) is the program’s first major blueprint for change. It was developed through a combination of global evidence scans, behavioural research, and extensive co design with retailers, growers, researchers, and consumers.
The RSAP identifies five priority intervention themes for immediate research, piloting and delivery in partnership with major and independent retailers, green grocers and fresh produce markets:
- Accessibility & Value – testing structural pricing strategies and value propositions that make vegetables the easy, affordable choice for all Australians.
- Convenience & Ease – making vegetables simple to buy, prepare, and enjoy through balanced meal deals, portioned bundles, recipe kits, and digital meal-planning tools.
- Knowledge & Skills – building confidence and competence by embedding vegetable know-how across the shopper journey and within retailer communications.
- Health Communication – putting ‘value’ back into Australian vegetables by exploring new ways to build and nudge consumers toward healthier eating habits.
- Choice Architecture & Visibility – exploring in-store and digital placement and prompts that make vegetables more prominent, more appealing, and more likely to be chosen.
“Retail is the front line of change. If we can make vegetables more visible, convenient and valued at the checkout, we can change what ends up on every Australian plate,” said Kate Eastoe, General Manager Healthy Living, Woolworths Group, and Chair, Woolworths Group Foundation.
“The Plus One Serve initiative is important, being an evidence-based approach to encourage the enjoyment and benefits of vegetables. This collegiate work will contribute to delivering affordable, sustainable health for all Australians.”
Mapping the retail shopper journey
To guide these interventions, Plus One Serve has created a Retail Shopper Journey Map – a tool that pinpoints the behavioural barriers and motivators influencing vegetable purchases from planning to plate.
It identifies five critical touchpoints:
- Planning: How do shoppers think about vegetables when they plan meals or shop lists?
- In-store and online shopping navigation: Ensure ‘serves of’ vegetables are included, prominently displayed, and featured in recipes, ready meals and meal/snack solutions.
- Point-of-purchase: Are promotions and displays nudging the right choices?
- At-home preparation: Do skills, time, or waste concerns limit use?
- Consumption and repeat behaviour: What experiences make people buy and eat vegetables again?
Understanding these steps allows retailers, suppliers, and researchers to design interventions that truly shift behaviour – from how vegetables are displayed to how they’re bundled, priced, and promoted.
Built with and for industry
The RSAP was co-designed through collaboration between AUSVEG, Hort Innovation, major retailers, independent grocers, grower groups, and behavioural researchers across leading universities.
This collaborative design ensures the plan is practical, scalable, and grounded in real-world retail operations. It also creates a framework for joint investment and innovation across the supply chain.
“We are working directly with retailers, researchers and industry to explore global best practice and consider how new approaches can be applied to the Australian market. The next step is to translate these insights into action to deliver volume sales growth and consumption,” said Plus One Serve Managing Director Justine Coates.
Economic and social impact
If implemented at scale, the RSAP could deliver significant benefits to both growers and the broader community. Increased vegetable demand will:
- Strengthen farm-gate returns and supply-chain resilience.
- Support regional jobs and economic growth.
- Reduce food waste through more efficient matching of supply and demand.
- Improve population health by reducing diet-related disease burden
Every additional serve purchased in retail represents not just healthier meals, but tangible value returning to Australian farms.
If the current trend continues, declining demand will push more growers out of business, increase reliance on imports, and drive up consumer prices. This threatens both national food security and the livelihoods of farming families.
AUSVEG CEO Michael Coote said “The Retail Setting Action Plan is a first for Australia – it is a united plan to grow vegetable demand in ways that benefit consumers, retailers and growers alike.”
From planning to implementation
With the RSAP now published, the focus shifts to implementation. The next 12 months will see the first wave of retailer-led pilot projects that will generate insights and data that feed into the broader Plus One Serve monitoring and evaluation frame- work led by AgEcon, ensuring accountability and shared learning across all partners.
How growers can get involved
Growers play a crucial role in this movement. Participation opportunities include:
- Innovation in vegetable breeding and production to access/improve fit with key occasions and a more diverse Australia (e.g snacking carrots).
- Collaborating with retailers on seasonal vegetable activations.
- Bundling and new packaging to meet evolving consumer preferences.
- Sharing on-farm sustainability stories that grow consumer-to-farm connection.
“We can’t just grow vegetables – we need to grow demand,” said a Queensland grower at a regional VegNET farm day recently.
Looking ahead
The Retail Setting Action Plan is only the beginning. Work is already underway on the Home Setting and Education Setting Action Plans, which will build complementary initiatives in households, early learning, and schools. Together, these create a whole-of-system approach to changing how Australians think about and consume vegetables.
Ultimately, Plus One Serve’s mission is simple: make vegetables the most visible, valued, and consumed food group in the nation. Achieving it will take persistence, partnership, and pride in what Australian growers produce every day.