Australian vegetable growers continue to deliver fresh, high-quality produce for Australian households – but they are doing so in an increasingly difficult environment. Rising input costs and market uncertainty are being compounded by a more fundamental challenge: Australians are not eating enough vegetables.

This reality is why AUSVEG has made increasing vegetable consumption a core strategic priority through Plus One Serve by 2030. Central to this work is the Pledge for More Veg – a national mechanism designed to shift responsibility for lifting consumption onto the parts of the food system that influence it most, including retailers, institutions, foodservice, workplaces, government and the health sector.

The Pledge exists to ensure that the rest of the food system plays its role in supporting Australian vegetable production, regional jobs and long-term industry viability.

Through the Pledge for More Veg, we are calling on individuals, community-based organisations, philanthropic and corporate donors, and the food and health sector to formally sign up and work with us on meaningful commitments that help drive increased vegetable consumption across Australia. By working together, we can deliver better health and wellbeing outcomes for all Australians, support stronger regional economies and local jobs, improve fair and equitable access to fresh food, and build a more sustainable, resilient and future-focused food system for generations to come.

Good for People. Good for Growers. Good for the Nation.

Key impact areas

The Pledge for More Veg is a powerful public-facing instrument designed to attract pooled investment and drive national action through bespoke Action Plans, which will be measured and reported to deliver collective impact. It drives impact in four key areas:

1. Health & Wellbeing: Improving diet quality for physical and mental wellbeing, reduced chronic disease incidence, and vitality through better nutrition.
2. Equity & Access: Ensuring all Australians – including underserved, CALD, regional and remote communities – can access and enjoy vegetables every day.
3. Environment & Social Impact: Building more sustainable and nutritious food systems, curating veg cities, reducing food waste, and greater social wellbeing.
4. Growers & Supply Chain: Increasing demand to strengthen farm gate returns, create jobs, bolster supply chain, and support regional communities to thrive.

The Pledge features a Commitments Framework 2025-2030 consisting of 12 overarching commitments (action areas). Each signatory with a vested role chooses from 12 action areas that ladder up to one or more of the four pillars. Signatories will sign individual pledges committing to select items from the Commitments Framework. For food system and health sector organisations with a vested role, there is no direct cost to becoming a signatory – our goal is to keep efforts directed towards action items.

How this will come to life

The Plus One Serve team are proactively engaging with a prioritised list of organisations that have been identified through a comprehensive market review. This outreach is already proving effective, with early conversations being positively received as the team clearly articulates the case for investment and collective action.

Driving positive change through collective national action

Progress against these commitments will be measured with results aggregated and reported through national impact reporting. All commitments will be guided by SMART goals, ensuring accountability and consistency across participating organisations. Below are some of the key metrics we will be reporting on:

Organisations: Number of organisations making a Pledge for More Veg
Volume: Total volume of vegetables sold by type/format
Serves: Total additional number of serves of vegetables
People: Total reach by age, life stage, household and priority populations.

Be part of the movement

The Pledge for More Veg is about bringing the entire food system together behind one clear goal – getting Australians to eat more vegetables, every day.

We are calling on growers to back the Pledge and help drive national action – reinforcing that increasing vegetable consumption is a shared responsibility across the food system, not one carried by growers alone.

This is a coordinated effort to lift consumption, strengthen demand and support the long-term viability of the vegetable industry.