Agricultural Product Marketing Class

Marketing Plan: Buying Local Food

By: Brittany Utsch, Paige Salmon, Maira Swart,
Krysta VanDamme, and Jose Pedro Barros

Introduction
The primary goal of this project is to create marketing materials such as slogans, messages,
and graphics that stores and farmers are able to utilize. Marketing material we create will
promote and advertise the benefit of local foods.

Background
A survey by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, conducted about buying local foods and
mailed to residents in Wisconsin. Enough data was collected from these surveys to conclude that
59% of women did the shopping in the household. In addition, 85% of people think that buying
from Wisconsin means local. Also, 64% of people are willing to pay more for local food.
Consumers were willing to purchase locally grown foods because they believe the food will be
fresher and tastier. Buying locally grown foods helps the local farmers receive credibility as well
as supporting the local community.

Description
An overview of this project involves many steps. The first step is to develop a message that
farmers and stores are able to utilize, whether it be in the store or on social media. The second
step is to test the message with focus groups such as friends and family. The third step is to come
back as a class and discuss what messages worked and what didnt work from the focus groups.
The fourth step is to create a design with the seven messages that were selected in class. The fifth
step is that each group will go out to stores to test out the seven different messages to see what
shoppers preferred, and what would persuade them to purchase more locally grown food. Each
group has their own slogan and marketing messages. The sixth step is to come back with data
and analyze it. The last and final step includes compiling and delivering the data back to the
researchers at University of Wisconsin--Madison.

Objective
The objective of this project is to increase purchases of buying locally grown foods and
the willingness to pay a premium for the locally grown food in Wisconsin. It also involves
narrowing down five messages created to the strongest messages that stores and farmers can
utilize.

Situational Analysis
Target Market
Consumers who are buying food
WI consumer; fruit and vegetable consumers
Consumer Buyers
People who do the shopping
60% of women do most shopping; Age doesnt matter
Organization buyers
Catering businesses
Retail stores
Supermarket stores
Producers are farmers markets

Competitors
Any company/food product that is out of state food
Other local farmers/farmers
Local food cooperatives

SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Transportation costs are low
Wide range of food
More farmer markets
People are willing to pay more for local food
UW-Madison Stats
Ag state
Local food is higher quality-fresher
Customer Relationships
Weaknesses
Local food is thought of as organic
Local food can be more expensive
Out of season for some local foods
Not many people are educated about local food
Production scale is smaller; prices smaller
People are unwilling to answer questions about project
Still learning about marketing; developing our marketing skills
Threats
Consumers can get defensive; dont like change
Everyone doesnt care about buying local
Large companies have more marketing resources than small local businesses; bigger
well-known brands are being marketed more than local foods
Other food cooperatives/other companies/other farmers
There are seasonal constraints to what we can produce locally, where as other states can
produce foods we are unable to. For example Florida is not considered local but they can
grow oranges when we cant
Prices with other competitors may be lower so therefore more people are going to shop
where they are cheaper prices
Large food chains are buying out farmers
Opportunities
Growing interest; growing trend in the U.S.
Improve marketing/sales (hold local classes/seminars)
People paying more
Social media promotion
Boost image of why buying local is important
Sustainable aspect

Improve local economy/give credibility to farmers

Local Food Market Attractiveness

Size of market
Growth of the market
Competitive structure
Availability of raw
material
Distribution structure

Weight
0.10
0.25
0.25
0.30
0.10

Rating
3
4
3
4
4

Total
.3
1
.75
1.2
.4
= 3.65

Size of market: The size of market was given a 10% because we need people willing to buy
local foods at all times. Currently, there is a not a high demand for local foods so that is why we
ranked it at 3. People are becoming more aware of the importance of local foods, but still is
potential for the market to grow.
Growth of the market: The growth of the market was given a 25% because in order for a
company to succeed, companies need to increase sales. The rating was given a 4 because as the
word gets out about the importance of buying local food, the market will grow and sales will also
increase.
Competitive structure: Competitive structure was given a 25% as well because in order to
succeed in the market, companies have to balance profit margin and competitive prices. The
rating was given a 3 because there are products out on the market that are relatively similar, but
tend to be cheaper.
Availability of raw material: Availability of raw material was given a 30% because companies
need to have inputs in order to produce outputs. The availability of that input determines the cost
and price of that output. The rating was given a 4 because a variety of crops are grown in the
Midwest and allows variety of products to choose from.
Distribution structure: Distribution structure was given a 10% because greater efficiency and
lower costs in transportation can save money and can increase profits. The rating was given a 4
because if done correctly, food will be of higher quality.

Marketing Tactics
By analyzing our merchandise and our target market, we can manipulate market place
environments: product, place, price, promotion. Manipulating the product variable has to do
with the life cycle of your resources. The marketing tactic of place has to do with how the
consumer and produce are brought together. Pricing tactics have to do with the strategy of the
producer to introduce their product or service at different monetary levels. Promotion is a tactic
to publicize your merchandise. Using these four tactics you can focus your resources to match
your products characteristics and therefore be more appealing to your customers.
Product
Product tactics include common things like introduction, modification, and withdrawal of
the product. For our local food project branding is what we have chosen to execute. This is
because we arent introducing a new product, we arent changing the product, and we arent
taking the product out of the market. We are also not changing the quality or packaging of the

produce. This is something that is already in existence, and we are just trying to change how
people perceive the product. By branding our product we hope to achieve higher profit margins,
increase our image and identification to stand out against other products.
Place
Distribution of the product we are marketing can be handled in many ways. Some
common approaches to placement of the produce are: direct or indirect channels, single or
multiple channels, and the characteristics of these channels can also vary. We consider local
foods to have the potential to be either a direct or indirect channel. A direct channel is when a
product goes directly from the producer to the consumer or customer. An example of a direct
channel for local foods could be a farmers market or a roadside stand. An indirect channel is
when a product goes through a retailer or wholesaler as a distributer. By going through a retailer
the producer makes a lower price per unit sold but is able to reach more customers, and therefore
increases profit. The more people you have between the producer and consumer there is less
money per unit sold. Since local food tends to be higher in price already, we want to reduce the
amount of channels between the producer and consumer to keep the price of the product as low
as possible.
Price
The tactic of price is the way a product is introduced into the competitive market. There
are three common ways to present a products price: penetration pricing which enters at a low
price, meet-the-competition pricing which enters at similar levels, and price skimming which
enters the market at higher levels. As a whole, local foods use the tactic of price skimming.
Generally it is going to cost the local producer more to grow their produce than large crop farmer
or company. This is because large farmers can specialize in one crop they can become more
efficient in terms of pounds of crop produced per dollar of input. Although this is not always the
case, sometimes local foods can compete with or beat the prices of non-local foods. This is
dependent on the specific production variables of the produce being compared. For the most
part, local foods will use price skimming as its tactic. They can afford to do this because the
product is higher quality, therefore it has the potential to be more valuable to the consumer.
Promotion
Promotion marketing tactics have to do with how the product is sold. Some ways this is
implemented include: face-to-face selling, sales promotion, advertising, and publicity. For the
local food project we are focusing on the publicity aspect of promotion. Our main objective is to
make local foods and their superior quality known to the market place. Part of our project is to
access how people of different shopping styles relate to different local food messages. By using
this technique we are saving money for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We are only
doing the initial research for future publicity, which will be carried out by producers themselves.
We hope to narrow our market strategies by using these four tactics.

Implementation
Our group was located at the River Falls local cooperative-Whole Earth Grocery. We set
up outside their front door on Main Street. The five slogans were displayed on a three foot by
four foot poster board (Image 1), propped on an easel. Index cards were printed where people
could rank the slogans from their favorite to their least favorite. To collect raw data we
approached people entering or leaving the store and asked if they would be willing to complete

our brief survey. The visitors of Whole Earth Grocery were receptive and willing to take our
survey with a few exceptions. We were able to gather data from 60 people to analyze our
slogans.
Image 1: Poster

Consideration
After analyzing the data we collected from the survey we took the averages for each
slogan. By doing this we were able to determine that slogan B (Buy Fresh, Buy Local, Buy
Wisconsin) resonated best with the consumers with an average of 3.69 out of 5. The chart below
(Image 2), shows the averages of each slogan. The slogan that had the lowest average score of
2.66 was C.

Local Food Campaign Results

4
3.5
3
2.5

Averages

3.69

3
2.66

2.88

2
1.5
1
0.5
0

Slogans
I
mage 2: Results
Slogan B had a lot of positive feedback, as well as some constructive criticism. People
liked the repetitiveness of the buy and the mentioning of Wisconsin. The opinion of the
background picture in the logo was not consistent. Many favored the picture because you see
that landscape in Wisconsin frequently. Others at the cooperative that sell product there were
less receptive to the picture because they felt it was unrepresented of their production site.
Overall many people enjoyed the shape of Wisconsin outlining the slogan. Although B received
a large fluctuation in reaction it was the most effective in getting consumer consideration.
Slogan C was the least liked by shoppers for several reasons. First, many felt that the
color was overwhelmingly red. Second, customers did not seem to relate well to the characters
with Buy Local signs, they felt the stick people were too childish. Lastly, others felt that the font
of the slogan was unprofessional. Although several consumers were attracted to that logo
because it reminded them of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers. Generally there was
more negative feedback about this logo than positive resulting in its low score.
Out of the people shopping at Whole Earth Grocery only four people refused to complete
our survey. We feel that we were generally well received for a few reasons. For one, many of
the people entering the store market their products at the cooperative. By selling their products
here they see intrinsic value in the survey we were administering. Another reason we were well
accepted is that many of the people shopping here have strong opinions about their food quality
and characteristics. The few that wouldnt complete our survey were either too busy or couldnt
relate to local foods. Some consumers were more concentrated on shopping strictly for the
organic values of the food. Our group believes that the type of people shopping at the
cooperative were a big reason for our success. (All Information regarding this Local Foods study
was provided by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)