Two years ago, the Bard Valley Medjool Date Growers Association in Yuma, AZ, launched a new label, “Bard Valley Natural Delights,” for use on all of its products, which includes Medjool dates and date rolls.

In support of the new brand, the association is engaged in a consumer advertising and public relations campaign “to drive increased awareness of ‘Bard Valley Natural Delight’ Medjool dates” and “both the taste and nutritional benefits that they bring,” said Edward O’Malley, president and CEO of grower-owned Datepac LLC in Yuma.

Datepac handles sales for Bard Valley Medjool and also does most of the packing for the association’s grower-members, who are located in Yuma and in nearby Bard, CA, on either side of the lower Colorado River.

Taste and nutrition are the concepts behind the “Natural Delights” name, O’Malley said. The dates are naturally healthy, and they are delightful to the taste. “From our focus group research, those are two attributes that are really important to people when they are looking for a snack.”

Bard Valley Medjool is “reinforcing” the brand name with consumers through an advertising campaign that includes print ads in Eating Well, Cooking Light, Prevention and Food Network magazines, O’Malley said. “We are also doing digital banner ads on the online versions of those magazines” as well as coupons in the magazines.

Social media is also being used in the “Natural Delights” consumer outreach. “Our Facebook [page] is up over 80,000 ‘likes,’” O’Malley said. Facebook fans are “really your dedicated users who love your products, and they really serve as advocates” for the product, he said. “These are brand ambassadors. These are people who are talking to their friends and family” about Medjool dates.

That is all “part of our effort to drive consumer awareness and trial of our brand of Medjool dates,” he said. “No one else in the Medjool date business is doing that. No one else is doing a concentrated consumer advertising program around dates except Datepac and the Bard Valley Medjool association. We’d love to see other people participate,” but for now, “we’re carrying the flag.”

Datepac and the Bard Valley growers have “about a 65 percent market share in the United States” in the Medjool category, O’Malley said.

Demand for Medjool dates is on the rise, and to meet that demand, growers have put in new plantings of date palms. “The supply is going up about four million pounds this year,” O’Malley said. This year’s yields are a little lighter than last year and the crop will be coming in “maybe 1.5 million pounds lighter than we expected,” but with young groves coming in to production, “we are getting that back and more.” With the strong market demand for Medjools, “we are very comfortable” that there will be customers waiting for that product, he said. “It is not going to sit around very long.”

The ad campaign, now in its second year, is “constantly driving up the demand, so as our supply is increasing, we are finding the demand is there to consume it,” he continued. “And we are creating that demand with effective branding and packaging” as well as advertising.

Last fall, Datepac and Bard Valley Medjool introduced “a new product that is meant to generate new users,” O’Malley said. It is a 4.3 ounce snack pack that retails at about $2.49, possibly as low as 99 cents on sale. Since many consumers have not yet tried Medjool dates, it is easier for first-time users “who are seeing our advertising to come in for a $2.49 purchase” than to spend $5 or $6 on a larger package of dates, he said. Thus, it is something of a trial-size pack. Consumers who find they like the product can then come back and purchase the larger one-pound tub or, in club stores, a two-pound tub, all of which carry the same “Bard Valley Natural Delights” brand.

The snack pack was introduced on a test basis last year, and “it went well, so we are rolling it out this year.” Last year, the pack consisted of a clear bag with a label on it. “Now we have seen enough demand for it that we are going to a nice printed film with a see-through window,” O’Malley said.

Branding, label design, new packaging and advertising are “the pillars of our demand expansion program,” he said. “But on the supply side, the growers have been planting more acres,” and those plantings are now “coming to fruition.”

In conjunction with that increase in volume, at Datepac “we have been expanding rapidly our sorting and drying and packing and consumer line,” he said. “We have the most sophisticated process for sorting and grading dates of anyone in the industry and that is why our quality is so high — because we have invested in this equipment and technology.”

From the field to the retail shelf, “we are really revolutionizing the Medjool date industry, and that is not an understatement,” he said.