Melon 1 promotion urges drivers to 'Use Your Melon'

Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Melon 1 has partnered with the Delaware Office of Highway Safety on a campaign that urges drivers to "Use Your Melon."

As part of the promotion, Delaware grocery stores will carry watermelons with stickers that say #DriveSober and "Use Your Melon," according to a news release.

The promotion began in July and runs through September.

"The Delaware Office of Highway Safety needed a new creative way to promote safe driving, and collectively we came up with this idea," Rachel Syngo, director of new business development with Melon 1, said in an e-mail.

The two entities, along with JD Motorsports, will also be featuring the "Use Your Melon" mantra in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Their logos will be present on the No. 4 car driven by Ross Chastain in the Dover Drive Sober 200 on Oct. 1.

Chastain is no stranger to watermelons; he grew up on a watermelon farm in Alva, Fla., as the son of a fifth-generation farmer, Syngo said, and Melon 1 has bought from his father for 20 years.

Earlier in the summer Melon 1 and the Delaware Office of Highway Safety joined forces for a buckle-up campaign, the tagline of which was "Protect Your Melon."

Melon 1 is a grower, packer and shipper of watermelons and supplies that product to the Northeast, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, according to the release.