Campaign: Grow Your Roots Soil Association x
Pukka Herbs
The Soil Association is the charity working with everyone to transform the way we eat, farm and care for our natural world.
Overview:
Grow Your Roots was a partnership campaign between the Soil Association and Pukka Herbs, designed to reconnect children with where food comes from through hands-on growing experiences in schools.
The campaign engaged primary schools across the UK, providing resources and support to help pupils grow herbs, learn about sustainability, and develop a deeper understanding of food systems. Alongside delivering educational impact, the campaign aimed to strengthen awareness of both the Soil Association and Pukka Herbs among schools, teachers and parents.
I led the campaign from development through to delivery, working across partnership management, content creation, school engagement and media outreach.
Lorna is that rare combination of being skilled at setting a strategy, delivering against priorities, achieving and excelling her goals, whilst also bringing in brave ambition and an innate sense of when and how to use comms to reach beyond the immediate need. Lorna’s ability to spot opportunities, to build partnerships, campaigns and events to drive awareness of the organisational mission and enable change are testament to her experience, knowledge and skills as well as her intuition in communications.
Julie Wilkins, Communications and Marketing Director, Soil Association
The Challenge:
The campaign needed to:
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Engage schools in a way that was practical, inspiring and easy to implement
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Translate sustainability and food education into tangible, hands-on experiences
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Balance educational outcomes with partner brand objectives
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Coordinate multiple stakeholders, including schools, suppliers and corporate partners
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Generate meaningful visibility beyond participating schools
My Approach
I developed and delivered a multi-layered campaign combining physical resources, educational content and storytelling, built around a simple concept of enabling children to grow their own herbs in schools. I coordinated the delivery of growing kits and created curriculum-linked resources and accessible guides to support teachers and sustain engagement. To drive participation, I introduced a national competition and encouraged schools to share their experiences. Working closely with Pukka Herbs and the Soil Association I managed logistics, stakeholder engagement and communications, alongside delivering a targeted press strategy to amplify reach across education, sustainability and regional media.
Impact
Grow Your Roots successfully combined education, engagement and brand storytelling to deliver meaningful impact at both school and national level.
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Engaged 15 primary schools across the UK, reaching hundreds of pupils through hands-on growing activities
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Strong participation and engagement, with schools actively using resources and sharing their experiences
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National and regional media coverage across education and sustainability outlets, with a reach of 1.5 million
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Enhanced brand visibility for both Food for Life and Pukka Herbs among schools, teachers and parents
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Lasting educational value, with resources and growing infrastructure continuing to be used beyond the campaign period
The campaign demonstrated how learning outside the classroom can drive deeper engagement, support behaviour change, and create meaningful connections between young people and the food they eat.
