Eurofresh – National produce product promotion
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Situation
There was a nationwide salmonella outbreak, and tomatoes were wrongly called out as possible carriers of the bacteria. The FDA later announced that tomatoes were considered safe, with no cases of salmonella. However, consumer confidence was shaken. Our client and greenhouse-grower of tomatoes, EuroFresh Farms, needed to restore customer confidence in the safety of their produce.
Online and media research and trend analysis showed that consumers were increasingly purchasing and eating locally-grown produce. Our research concluded that shoppers would choose to buy products from a company that has their best interests in mind.
Solution
Caliber developed a campaign strategy titled, “Arizona Grown,” to educate Arizona customers and media about EuroFresh Farm’s and to strengthen the company’s identity as a local (Arizona) company that provides great-tasting, fresh and safe tomatoes to Arizona consumers on a consistent basis. One key publicity strategy included forming a partnership with Fox Restaurant Concepts, an Arizona company that owns and operates upscale restaurants in Arizona (and Texas, California, Colorado and Kansas). Since Fox’s restaurants were buying EuroFresh Farms tomatoes, the collaboration provided a good opportunity for Fox to reassure and remind consumers that EuroFresh Farms grows its tomatoes in Arizona, inside greenhouses and without pesticides (or animals and feces that carry salmonella).
EuroFresh Farms provided information to Fox’s chefs and invited the company’s staff to tour its facility in Willcox to demonstrate its safe growing practices. After the tour, Fox agreed to identify the source of its tomatoes on its menus and gave EuroFresh Farms the rights to use its recipes during the campaign. Fox allowed their executive chefs in Tucson and Phoenix to act as media spokespeople for EuroFresh Farms and its produce. Fox also put information on its website and in its restaurants informing customers that its tomatoes were safe and grown in Arizona.
As a result of Caliber’s strategic publicity campaign, EuroFresh Farms’ product was embraced by multiple retailers, including Arizona-based Bashas’ supermarkets, which asked EuroFresh Farms to create stand-alone campaign display units for all of its stores in Arizona. During the promotional period, Bashas’ sales of EuroFresh tomatoes increased three times over any other promotion of tomatoes in the past. Fox Restaurants continued to use the Arizona Grown marketing strategy, sourcing tomatoes from EuroFresh Farms and sharing recipes for use in publications such as the Costco cookbook. The media relations efforts of this campaign were extremely successful and generated coverage for EuroFresh Farms in multiple media outlets including Arizona television, radio, newspapers and magazines.
