UK: Australian Vintage recruits Masterchef judge for UK consumer push

By Olly Wehring | 30 January 2013

Australian Vintage is targeting food and wine mixes with its UK push for McGuigan Wines

Australian Vintage has teamed up with celebrity chef John Torode for a food and wine-matching UK consumer campaign with its McGuigan Wines division.

The company, which changed its name from McGuigan Simeon five years ago, launched the QR code-based initiative in London yesterday (29 January). Torode, who is one of the judges on the UK version of Masterchef, has created a range of recipes accessible via QR codes on bottles of the McGuigan wine brand in the UK.

The promotion will also offer a competition prize of an afternoon of cooking followed by lunch with Torode.

The 'John Torode and Neil McGuigan Recipe Collection' launches nation-wide next month.

Here's how the concept works:

Consumers access the service by scanning the QR code on any bottle of McGuigan with a QR code reader app on their smartphones
Users will be taken to a webpage that recognises the wine they are looking at and will ask for their dietary preferences
Users either enter their specific tastes to filter the 50 recipes into ones that suit them, or leave this blank to receive the full 50 recipes
A collection of the recipes suited to their tastes will be sent by email as a PDF or ePublisher file