The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB) latest campaign to promote pork sales has had a considerable impact so far.

That’s according to consumer data specialist Kantar Worldpanel, who found that the board’s ‘Pick Pork’ campaign has resulted in a sales increase of 16.5% of the promoted products in the last six weeks.

In hard currency, this figure equates to £3.2 million.

The statistics also indicate that over half the population of the UK – around 34 million people – have seen the advertisements, through a mixture of television and online or digital media.

The products that received the most attention during the campaign included pork fillet and loin steaks and medallions, which featured in ad breaks during some of the most watched television programmes, such as The X-Factor, The Great British Bake off and Coronation Street.

The thrust of the campaign was to ‘break with boring’, encouraging people to introduce pork into their mid-week meals.

According to Kantar Worldpanel, the AHDB’s attempts to reach younger shoppers also met with success – videos relating to the campaign were viewed over 1.6 million times on social media and online platforms.

“We set out to put more pork on plates through the week, giving consumers confidence to cook easy and delicious recipes,” said Liam Byrne, the AHDB’s head of meat marketing.

Major supermarkets’ and independent butchers’ support during the Pick Pork campaign was invaluable, and placing adverts through video on demand has helped us reach an extra 3.4 million consumers.

His colleague, Mike Sheldon – AHDB’s pork chairman – said: “The results of the latest Pick Pork campaign demonstrate –  with inspiration and the right choice of cuts – consumers are interested in having pork as part of a healthy diet.

“It’s encouraging to see that younger consumers have connected with social media and online pork initiative too – so we’re reaching the next generation of shoppers,” added Sheldon.