OUGD601 - Context of Practice 3: Emails Prior to Meeting

Email sent to Tesco contacts:

Dear ___

I am a third year Graphic Design student from Leeds college of Art. I am currently writing my dissertation about the food industry, and have a keen interest in packaging design so will be focusing my written element on food and packaging waste. I will be attending the meeting next Tuesday 18th November at the Florence Institute, but thought I would email you in advance to give you a bit of background information, so that we can have a more in depth discussion in person.

I met Tony Scott (from Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority) at Liverpool Food Festival where we discussed the national Love Food Hate Waste scheme. He has since introduced me to Shelley Whatmore at the Tesco store in Toxteth. I was fortunate enough to have a meeting with them both today to discuss potential ideas for how we could raise awareness and try and reduce food and packaging waste in Liverpool.

We came up with several ideas, one of which we feel has potential to be hugely successful and we would love to try and develop as far as possible in hope that it could eventually be used in multiple Tesco supermarkets. I understand that the next Neighborhood Food Collection will be between the 24th-29th November, but we would like to try and push this further by doing the following:

Setting up a point of sale display in the entrance of Tesco with Love Food Hate Waste (and anyone else who would like to be involved!) leading up until Christmas which explains to customers how they can help others who are less fortunate and in need of food over the festive period. The scheme could be called something along the lines of 'Feed a family' or 'Feed a friend'. Each customer that enters Tesco would be greeted with a reusable shopping bag and leaflets informing them of possible food products they could purchase to create a full meal for those in need. The bag could take the same form as a bag for life or maybe even a recyclable bag, encouraging people to do it more than once. This bag could then be emptied at the end of their shopping experience and collected all together, in the same way it is now. 

This is so that customers don't simply finish all of their shopping and then think about the Food Bank as secondary thought, instead they will be made aware of it as soon as they enter the supermarket! Evidence from organisers of Food Banks suggests that not all donated food is suitable or appropriate for a healthy or nutritional meal (how many meals can you make from a tin of beans?). We would like to direct people to donate a range of wholesome foods. In addition, by asking people to feed a family would indicate that they would buy more of Tesco’s products. For example a bag of rice would be welcomed but by adding a Tesco tin of chicken curry would also make it more appetising and filling. Providing the ingredients for a meal therefore increases the amount of money spent in Tesco’s whilst helping a good cause.

For this idea to develop I would love to be able to speak to anyone involved with the design of any POS displays (to enable me to be able to design/work with a team of designers to produce the end result), and would also love any feedback or suggestions. 

I will be at the meeting next week but would love to hear from you before then!

Kind regards,

Laura Wallbridge-Bruce

Response 1:

Hi Laura,

Thanks for getting in touch. Your ideas sound interesting and I have forwarded your email onto our food waste lead. I’d be happy to talk more at the meeting so that I can understand a bit more and provide any guidance on what may or may not be possible.

Kind regards,

Mark

Response 2:

Hi Laura,

Thank you for your note and I am looking forward to meeting you on Tuesday, we can have a good catch up then.

Sounds like you have some really great ideas, we do have a few policies and procedures that we need to ensure we maintain around the front of our stores and the use of POS, we can talk through these Tuesday, but I am sure we have an opportunity to work together on lots of ideas.

See you Tuesday

Ben