One of the best parts about working with the Whole Grains Council has always been the lively exchanges we have with colleagues in other countries, who share our passion for promoting whole grains. This week we received an update from Rikke Iben Nees, leader of the Danish Wholegrain Campaign. 

Just wanted to share with you that we — inspired by your National Whole Grain Sampling Day — celebrated National Whole Grain Day for the second time on October 24th in Denmark.

This year’s theme was: ”Whole Grain to/for the People”(Fuldkorn Til Folket, in Danish). And this year’s event was quite bigger than last year. Again we wanted to give consumers a taste for whole grains and a joyful experience learning more about whole grains and their benefits.

We were present in 7 train-stations nationwide: Aalborg, Aarhus (third photo), Esbjerg, Kolding, Fredericia, Sønderborg (shown above) and of course The Grand Central Station in Copenhagen (directly below).

We gave away over 50,000 whole grain products sponsored by the Danish whole grain partners. We had a morning sampling from 6.30am-9am and an afternoon sampling from 15.30pm-18.30pm, meeting the Danes on their way to work and home from work. We also handed out orange balloons with our whole grain stamp for the kids. We handed out whole grain products in a nice shopper bag with the orange stamp, containing information about whole grain. We handed out flyers with a competition to win a trip in a hot air balloon.

We were 76 people this time: our amazing whole grain ambassador [and TV personality] Vibeke Hartkorn (shown below), 48 volunteers, whole grain partners and the hard working campaign office staff. Sofia and Janni were in Aarhus. Andreas and I were in Copenhagen. Our experience this year was that a lot of Danes now know our orange whole grain stamp and a lot of the Danes told us that they eat whole grain every day.

It was amazing so many people helped us out.  Only thanks to them was it possible to go nation wide and their efforts made this day a special and joyful experience we will think of and remember for a long time. The volunteers came from The Danish Heart Association, The Danish Cancer Society and our own wonderful Whole Grain volunteers. After finishing the event we had an agreement in advance with Project Homeless, that they could collect whole grain products for the homeless. (Photo below, left to right: Gitte Johansen from Project Homeless, Rikke and Andreas from the Whole Grain Campaign office)

Craft [artisanal/independent] bakeries had their own event October 24th. All over the country craft bakeries offereded to swap your old non-whole grain bread for a new whole grain bread — for free. The millers and producers supplied the whole grain bread or flour to make bread, so the bakeries didn’t have any expenses at all. (Rikke Iben Neess, guest post)

Posters used in the Danish National Whole Grain Day campaign are shown above. The first one invites people to “Like us on Facebook” to be entered to win a hot air balloon ride; the second one is about the bakery swap (Byt til Nyt) means “swap for new”; and the third one shows a map of Denmark formed from whole grain foods. You can see more photos posted on the Danish Wholegrain Campaign’s Facebook page.