The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has announced the award of a licence to Dexam, a specialist supplier of kitchen cookware, bakeware and accessories, to produce a range of children’s backpacks and meal accessories using environmentally friendly or recycled material.
Called the Home Grown Children’s Collection, the range includes backpacks, lunch bags with matching drinks bottles, lunch boxes, children’s aprons, toddler messy play aprons and children’s eating gift sets.
The items in the range are all illustrated with engaging illustrations featuring bright and very colourful images of carrots and apples with captions like “I am growing every day”, “Home harvest” and “Locally grown”.
The range has also been designed with the environment in mind. The lunch bags, backpacks and aprons are made from recycled plastic bottles via a process which turns the plastic into a durable and practical fabric. The bags are wipe clean and the aprons are 40°C machine washable. The lunch boxes and kids’ eating sets are made from bamboo fibre. Bamboo is renewable, biodegradable and grows quickly without fertilisers. It is also naturally antibacterial – so perfect for holding food.
The range is expected to launch in spring 2021. It will be available at high street stores, garden centres, RHS shops and online, including the official RHS online store.
The designs are all inspired by artwork from the new RHS children’s style guide, which was launched last year. These are the first non-publishing-related products to use the children’s style guide, which will see its licensing debut in a range of books from Scholastic. The first Scholastic titles will launch in February 2021.
The continuing development of the RHS range of children’s products will be a strong RHS focus in the coming months, especially given the growth in family visits to gardens and parks – along with the much greater time devoted to gardening – that has been a feature of this year’s ongoing restrictions.
