Jersey Fresh: Looking forward and back in 2025
By
Joe Atchison III
Jersey Fresh: Looking forward and back in 2025
New Jersey is known as the Garden State and for good reason. Our farmers produce over 100 varieties of real, local, fruits and vegetables and rank in the Top 10 in production of eggplant, squash, peaches, peppers, blueberries, cranberries, sweet corn, asparagus… the list goes on. Our microclimates and great soils combined with the dedication of New Jersey’s farmers and the New Jersey Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety team all combine to assure you of the freshest, most flavorful, and safe produce you can offer your customers.
And for just over 40 years, the Jersey Fresh brand has represented this excellence. Started in 1984, the Jersey Fresh logo embodies the assets your customers seek, it’s as fresh as fresh gets. When the brand was originally launched, there was a radio campaign that extolled “Jersey Fresh…From the Garden State.” Over the decades that followed there have been several award-winning campaigns that have grown in size and scope and have invested millions of dollars in spreading the message about the quality and freshness of Jersey Fresh. This year, as we look forward to another great season, we will be revisiting many of those campaigns.
By offering Jersey Fresh products to your customers, you provide them with assurances of quality and freshness. You know they want to pick the best, Jersey Fresh. Products bearing our brand are subject to quality grading to assure they meet U.S. No. 1 or better standards. Customers recognize and appreciate the association of Jersey Fresh and quality.
The NJDA has already began social media campaigns promoting weekly availability reports of early crops and forecasting the coming harvest. If you would like to be added to the weekly availability report distribution list, please email [email protected] and each Monday, you’ll receive an update. We also have content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and an increased presence on Pinterest this year!
The rest of our campaign is born to jam your produce sections with customers. Our early season digital billboards along some of the country’s most heavily traveled roadways have already been making appearances. These digital boards allow us to quickly update messaging and promote products that are available each week throughout the harvest season. This wide net approach allows us to create awareness and generate tens of millions of driver impressions.
To reinforce the billboard messaging, seasonal products will be featured in radio spots on terrestrial radio in English and in Spanish again this season. These messages will change weekly to highlight different crops as they come to market and to reinforce our messaging. The spots allow us to reach people in a more traditional way during traffic and weather reports when they are more inclined to pay attention to commercial breaks.
In addition to summer being Jersey Fresh season, it also means millions of visitors to our Jersey Shore. While people bask on our pristine beaches, whether it be for a day or an extended stay, Jersey Fresh will be reaching consumers. We plan to have a Jersey Fresh airplane banner flown from the top of shore at Sandy Hook to the southernmost tip of Cape May every weekend this summer. This messaging will reach consumers from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania as they visit our No. 1 tourist attraction. These banners will dovetail with three promotional event days along the boardwalks in Seaside Heights, Atlantic City and Wildwood. And new this year, we will have a digital billboard mounted to a boat that runs along the shoreline and allows for message flexibility in both English and Spanish.
We will continue to reach out to buyers through our Eastern Produce Council event, and many trade shows including the New England Produce Council show in Boston, the International Fresh Produce Association show in Anaheim, CA, the New York Produce Show in December and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association Show in Toronto in April 2026. Please find us at these events, we’d love to see you.
This mixed-media approach is designed to drive consumers to grocery retailers and other hubs for Jersey Fresh products throughout the growing season. And because your consumers will be looking for local Jersey Fresh, the NJDA will continue to offer our point-of-purchase banners, aprons, hats, bin wraps and price cards so that you can identify your displays of the Jersey Fresh products they will be demanding. Please contact my office at (609) 913-6520 if you would like to request POP materials.
New Jersey’s farmers grow all this goodness just minutes or hours away from tens of millions of consumers — your customers. Reach out to your favorite Garden State growers today to provide your customers with what they want. Jersey Fresh. The Freshest for (just over) 40 years!
Jersey Fresh delivers because it’s grown right here.
Did you happen to catch the nine taglines we’ve used over the years woven into this story?
Joe Atchison III is assistant secretary director, marketing and development for the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.