For over 30 years, the Jersey Fresh brand has delivered on its promise to provide the freshest, high-quality fruits and vegetables — and this growing season will be no different.

Temperatures are warming, early-season crops like greens and asparagus are in, and fields are planted with all of New Jersey’s great summer crops. If you want to provide the best produce to your customers, we’d like you to remember that Jersey Fresh delivers.

The New Jersey Department of Agriculture’s “Jersey Fresh Delivers” marketing campaign is a new concept this year. This campaign features ads that highlight the finest fruits and vegetables that New Jersey farmers bring to market day after day.

Based on consumer research that indicated high levels of awareness in southern New Jersey, but lesser awareness in the north, we focused our marketing in the northern New Jersey and New York areas in 2015. We did see an uptick in awareness and we intend to continue that strategy for 2016.

Our research indicates that more and more people each year are abandoning traditional outlets for news and relying more on the Internet. For this reason, Jersey Fresh will begin its first-ever online advertising and sponsored content campaign. The NJDA will be partnering with NJ Advance Media, a powerful multi-media organization with online versions of 13 newspapers covering the whole state via NJ.com. Additionally, they offer online video and print options to reach very specific target segments of the population based on their proprietary data research and collection methods.

Along with online ads and video sponsorship, Advance Media will be providing premier placement of sponsored content on their NJ.com homepage. This content will allow the Department to provide more detailed information on topics that would interest readers throughout the growing season, while encouraging them to seek out Jersey Fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Department will also be employing radio ads in an effort to increase our reach. Radio is a must in reaching consumers and encouraging them to visit their nearest retail outlet for fresh produce. The New Jersey Department of Agriculture will be utilizing the state’s largest radio station, NJ 101.5, as well as smaller stations, to reach drivers when they are in their cars and likely to stop for some Jersey Fresh, either on their way to the shore or on their way home. Radio ads will cover a large part of the state and will continue throughout the summer.

The Jersey Fresh brand continues to grow via social media. We are seeing new followers each week with higher levels of interaction with the brand. This summer will be the second summer of Jersey Fresh Love — a social media campaign and contest detailed in another article in this issue of The Produce News. Jersey Fresh Love asks people on social media to document where they are finding Jersey Fresh and what they are doing with it.

The Department has implemented a print ad campaign using a cornucopia of fresh fruit and vegetable photography, reminding retailers that “Jersey Fresh Delivers” during our great growing season. The ads will appear in several regional and national trade publications, including The Produce News from April through November.

Consumer research shows that people are happy to buy Jersey Fresh at the supermarket if they can easily find it. These studies have shown that people are more likely to buy and more likely to pay more for produce identified as truly locally grown. And it doesn’t get much more local than Jersey Fresh.

Therefore, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture is continuing production of several types of point-of-purchase materials for retailers that they may use to identify the great New Jersey agricultural products they offer. Some of the POP materials produced include Jersey Fresh price cards in two sizes, vinyl and polysatin banners featuring the produce images, aprons, hats and bin wraps featuring large Jersey Fresh logos and small Jersey Fresh logo labels. NJDA staff also will conduct visits to retailers to provide POP materials. If you are interested in obtaining a supply of these POP materials, please contact the Jersey Fresh team at 609-292-8853.

The NJDA staff will continue to attend industry trade shows and conventions to promote the state’s agricultural industry, because reaching retailers on a one-on-one level remains a priority in the marketing process. Events include the United Fresh/FMI show in a few weeks in Chicago, the New England Produce Council (NEPC) show in Cape Cod in September, the Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit show in Orlando in October and the NY Produce Show at the Javits Center in New York City in December. Staff also plans to exhibit at the Canadian Produce Marketing Association trade show in Toronto in April 2017. Additionally, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture co-locates its annual State Agricultural Convention with the Vegetable Growers Association of New Jersey trade show in Atlantic City, each February.

We continue producing an annual consumer Awareness & Purchase Report to track whether people recall the advertising and the brand and to discover new or oncoming trends in the marketplace. Conducted in late-September toward the end of the growing and marketing season, the Department, with assistance from a marketing research firm, conducts this study involving surveys of more than 800 consumers from across the New Jersey/New York/Pennsylvania region. Consumers will be asked questions on a variety of topics including advertising impressions and recall, locally grown, social media usage and food safety, to name a few. Based on the results of this study, marketing strategies will be adjusted, as needed, for even greater effectiveness in 2017.

We hope you will allow Jersey Fresh to deliver quality to you!

— Joe Atchison, NJDA Agricultural Marketing Coordinator