Beef and Lamb Ambassador Shares His Secrets With S

Beef and Lamb Ambassador Shares His Secrets With School Children

Tomorrow (February 15) is National Lamb Day, commemorating the 125th anniversary of the first shipment of New Zealand frozen meat to Great Britain.

No-one is more excited about it than the New Zealand Beef and Lamb Marketing Bureau’s ambassador to schools, Iron Brion (8).

He reckons it’s the coolest job in the world.

Iron Brion (not his real name) first started visiting schools several years ago to teach children the secret of how he got to be so big and strong.

“My secret is, I eat lots of New Zealand beef and lamb as part of a diet that includes heaps of fruit and veges as well,” he says.

In the years since he’s been on the road, Iron Brion reckons he’s visited close to a 1000 schools – that’s nearly half a million children. He’s so popular only about a third of the requests for him to appear can be met in any one year. He gives shows to schools with anywhere from 12 pupils to 700.

“I have to break up the big schools into smaller groups because the kids like to interact with me, especially when we play games like ‘boogie for the beanie’.”

Iron Brion is easily recognised by the children he visits – he has a huge head of bright blue hair that sticks up like grass and enormous blue shoes. He has a silver suit and admits it gets pretty hot when he’s up on stage.

“It’s a high energy show – the children get really worked up. And they get very excited when we turned up at the school with our big barbecue trailer.”

He travels with “his lovely assistants” – one who cooks on the barbecue for the children to sample a healthy burger and one to turn his boards around on stage.

“The messages we give are about healthy eating and exercise and the importance of beef and lamb in contributing to the healthy balanced diet of all Kiwi kids. I eat lean beef and lamb at least three to four times a week. “

As part of his job, Iron Brion has to be “up” on his nutritional knowledge.

“Sometimes I get some pretty tricky questions – especially from parents. But we have a lot of laughs too. They really love it when I show off my big, strong muscles. I think telling jokes helps the kids to remember what they’re learning.”

And there’s lots of play acting too – going into slow motion with voice effects to show what happens when children don’t get enough iron.

“I think it’s great that Meat & Wool New Zealand are reminding everyone with National Lamb Day that it’s not just an important part of our diet, but our history and future too.”

ENDS

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