Morrisons is giving away 10,000 wonky British carrots to customers who want to leave out refreshments for Father Christmas and his reindeer on Christmas Eve.
The wonky carrots – which are oversized, misshapen and scarred, but still taste delicious – will be handed out in bags labelled ‘Carrots for Rudolph’ from the entrances of our 498 Morrisons stores across the UK from Wednesday 22ndDecember.
The move aims to introduce children to wonky veg and encourage families to buy large, misshapen or slightly scarred carrots. During the festive period, our carrot sales soar, from a typical 500k bags-a-week in Morrisons to over 1.4 million in Christmas week, although wonky carrots only account for between 10% to 15% percent of sales.
Andy Todd, Carrot Buyer at Morrisons said:
“Leaving out a carrot for Rudolph is a magical Christmas tradition and we want to make it easy for our customers to get involved. At the same time, we want to highlight that wonky carrots are just as tasty as perfect-looking carrots and help support our farmers.”
As British farming’s single biggest customer, we chose to make farmers the heroes of our Christmas advert this year. We wanted to thank them for all the work they do to help make Christmas so special – including growing and picking the carrots for both our festive lunch and for us to leave out for Rudolph.
The tradition of leaving food and drink out for Father Christmas and his reindeer can be traced all the way back to ancient Norse mythology where children would leave out food for Sleipner, the eight-legged horse ridden by Norse God Odin, in the hope that he would stop by on his travels and leave gifts in return.
