It is a known fact that more and more, consumers want to know where their food comes from and how it was grown. Companies that feature sustainability in their growing, harvesting and packaging can be assured of more success versus their peers who do not employ these practices but that is also dependent on consumer awareness.

This is just one reason among many why it is important to use savvy marketing tactics for produce. For a while, produce marketing was limited to introducing products to distributors and retailers. The consensus was that to consumers, a banana is just a banana (for example). This has quickly been changing. Dole and Chiquita are just two of the companies that employ consumer-facing marketing in order to heighten brand awareness even though they themselves do not sell directly to consumers.

One tactic produce companies are using is emotional marketing. This means that while we know produce is good for us it is generally not enough for us to consume as much as we should. We need to make produce fun, a feast for the senses. We need to tie it in to other causes which consumers are passionate about, such as clean eating and the environment.

There are trends which we know are not going anywhere anytime soon, such as the trend towards a more plant-based diet. We also know that with the explosion of food-themed instructional videos, more people are cooking and experimenting with fruits and vegetables they may not have used before.

It is therefore important to use not only traditional marketing tactics when talking about fruits and vegetables, but also modern strategies that consider how people think and feel.

If you’re a produce company that could use some help with marketing, you have come to the right place! The team at Oster and Associates can help build a strategy that allows you to reach your 2019 goals.