Spring marketing for K-VA-T and Food City stores revolves around the introduction of local produce and focusing on what’s soon to arrive, says Joe Greene, vice president of produce and floral operations.
This year the stores are focusing on a Farm to Food City theme that’s proved successful in previous years. Favorite produce items for the spring are strawberries and local Grainger County, Tenn., tomatoes.
“Spring is a great time to market produce because of all the wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables that are coming into season,” says Chris Harris, category director of produce and floral for New Seasons Market, which has 22 stores in and around Portland, Ore. “We do a big push on asparagus since it is so fresh and high quality and combines with items like lemons and garlic to make impressive displays. Strawberries are another big push item as they are especially sweet and delicious in the spring.”
It’s also a good time, says Matt Hiltner, marketing manager for Babé Farms in Santa Maria, Calif., because in many places the local growers don’t yet have any produce and the company sends its fruits and vegetables across North America.
Babé Farms focuses on specialty produce, which is often colorful and resonates well at this time of year, he says. The company primarily sells to distributors and a few select retailers.
Spring is a critical time for Crystal Valley Foods in Miami, “as it historically aligns with peak availability and strong quality across many of our core items,” says Katiana Valdes, marketing director. “It’s a natural moment to re-engage with both retailers and consumers as demand shifts toward fresh, lighter and more seasonal eating. Spring also sets the tone for the rest of the year, making it an important window to highlight our programs and reinforce consistency and supply.”
The company likes to center its messaging around freshness, versatility and premium quality across key items and to emphasize how its products fit seamlessly into everyday meals.
Brighter Bites is a nonprofit in Houston that provides produce to families in under-resourced areas. It has 16 weeks of programming (deliveries and education) — eight in the fall and eight in the spring.
This season is the perfect time to market fresh fruit and vegetables because they’re easier to prepare and more exciting than fall and winter produce, says Christina Maynor, senior manager of branding and program support.
“There’s an ease to chopping up something fresh and just biting into it, which you don’t get with fall and winter produce,” she says. The food’s more exciting for kids, too, with berries, cherry tomatoes and baby carrots.
Spring is a key moment for Fresh Innovations/Yo Quiero Brands, a Rhome, Texas-based company whose dips are merchandised in the produce aisle.
“It sets the tone for the entire year,” says Tara Murray, vice president of marketing. “It’s when consumers shift into more social occasions … and the start of outdoor entertaining. Dips naturally play a role in all of those moments.”
The season “is an opportunity to re-engage shoppers with fresh, vibrant flavors and remind them that dips aren’t just for one occasion — they’re part of everyday meals, snacks and gatherings,” she adds.
Yo Quiero has changed its marketing this year. In previous years it focused on specific events like Cinco de Mayo, but this year it’s taking a full-season approach.
“It’s less about one holiday and more about owning the entire spring entertaining and snacking season,” Murray explains. The messaging is centered around fresh flavor, effortless entertaining and versatility.
The California Avocado Commission, Irvine, Calif., focuses its marketing on when product is available, which historically aligns with the spring. It runs a season-long spring and summer campaign “to maintain consistent consumer engagement and retail support,” says Ken Melban, president.
Spring “is a powerhouse,” says Taylor Meadows, marketing manager of Happy Dirt, an organic produce wholesale distributor in Durham, N.C. Strawberries, broccoli and lettuce are a few of the organic items the company gets excited about, and 37% of the company’s produce volume is grown in this season.
Social Media Focus
Food City stores like to use social media as a spring marketing method and this year are working with a local farm, Mann Farm, which is creating social media videos. An employee from the farm has been creating weekly social media updates about how the crops are coming along to create additional excitement before they’re delivered to the stores, says Greene.
Food City stores like to use social media as a spring marketing method, and this year are working with a local farm that is creating social media video updates on crops shortly before they’re delivered to the stores.
Babé Farms has been leaning into social media this spring. To ensure posts are professional, the company has invested in camera quality and is ramping up its Instagram Reels, offering content such as a demo of a spring crudité plate with beet hummus. Ideally the videos are less than a minute.
“Attention spans are shorter than ever, so it’s important to capture viewers’ attention early,” Hiltner explains.
Videos are the company’s focus going forward, he says, because Instagram prioritizes them and they tend to be viewed more by nonfollowers than photos. He posts one to three times a week but says the challenge is most of the posts can’t be scheduled because he likes to show which produce is available that week. The videos featuring recipes and anything with people in it, like an employee spotlight or a behind-the-scenes harvesting video, are the most popular.
Crystal Valley Foods likes to use in-store signage, demos and packaging to reach consumers at the point of purchase, “especially for driving impulse and trial,” says Valdes. It also uses social media to extend the message, but it’s important to create a consistent story across all touchpoints, she emphasizes.
The 2026 California Avocado Commission marketing campaign, “The Voice of the Grower,” builds on last year’s campaign, which aimed to communicate key differentiators — locally grown, sustainably farmed — through a blend of grove imagery and lifestyle moments with families enjoying California avocados.
“This year, we’ve taken that storytelling a step further by putting our growers front and center,” Melban says.
“Consumers are hearing directly from the people behind the product — multigenerational farming families who bring care, pride and sustainable practices to their crops,” he adds. “Every grower featured in this year’s campaign helped craft the messaging that went into the advertisement. That authenticity is incredibly important to today’s shoppers and reinforces the premium positioning of California avocados.”
The commission doesn’t try to reach everyone but instead tries to resonate with its target customer.
“The most effective content is authentic, relevant and aligned with our brand messaging,” Melban says. This ranges from recipe inspiration to in-grove storytelling with growers to timely, seasonal content.
“What matters most is that the influencer’s voice feels genuine and that their audience trusts their recommendations,” he explains. “We’re also using social media to help guide consumers directly to retailers carrying California avocados by partnering with those retailers and bringing influencers in-store to capture ‘shop with me’ content.”
Videos are still king on social media, says Happy Dirt’s Meadows, and they need to be short — ideally 20 seconds or less.
“You have to hook people in the first three seconds,” she says.
Happy Dirt’s social media posts aim to be educational and those featuring farmers get the most engagement, she says. Other videos show recipe demos or talk about the nutrition of the produce.
Social media is key for inspiration and discovery, says Murray. And Yo Quiero likes to work with influencers, “to tell a more credible, third-party story that builds trust and introduces our products in a real-life context,” she explains. “Whether it’s a recipe feature, seasonal roundup or influencer-created content, it helps bring our brand to life in an authentic way.”
Vital Education
In stores, New Seasons likes to tell the story of the arrival of spring produce through merchandising.
“Fresh spring products move to the front of our produce departments and into promotional displays in our stores,” Harris says. Plus, he adds, many producers are able to provide bins and shippers to help make displays pop.
New Seasons’ customers want to know where their food comes from and about local farmers.
“Recipes are a great way to engage with customers and provide them with inspiration for how to bring spring produce into their homes,” Harris says.
The education and informational side of marketing is really important, says Maynor, and Brighter Bites focuses on two categories: “Eat in Season” and “Healthy on a Budget.”
“Providing produce is not enough to help get it on the table, so we provide the education around why it’s healthy and why it’s good to cook,” she says.
The organization provides recipes, tip sheets and a healthy newsletter through texts, emails, printed pages and signage. Brighter Bites also posts cooking demos on its website.
The most valuable information is the nutrition education piece, says Maynor.
“We want to demystify produce. So, when families pick it up, the coordinators talk about these items; these are in-season, these are items that will be cheaper at the grocery store,” she says. “We find human interaction is helpful in creating that change and where a lot of families resonate.”
The second most popular information is the recipes, she says, adding that “everyone is always looking for new ideas and inspiration.”
In stores, Happy Dirt uses shelf-talkers with QR codes and aims to work more closely with retailers to build eye-catching displays of many-colored fruits and vegetables. This year the company plans to do a bigger push to get its recipe cards into stores, which really helps encourage sales, says Meadows.
“Consumers want to know what to do with produce,” she says.
Yo Quiero’s Murray says retailers appreciate education through insights, such as how to merchandise dips more effectively, where to place them for incremental sales and how to connect them to seasonal occasions.
Reaching Families
Spring also provides an opportunity to focus on getting families, especially children, to eat more produce.
It’s “a great time to target items that are easy to put in lunch boxes, like grapes and berries,” says New Season’s Harris. “We also feature our pre-cut fruit options which are ready to eat, include pineapple, melons and fruit salad.”
For families, “the focus is on convenience, nutrition and versatility,” says Crystal Valley Foods’ Valdes. “Items like blueberries, blackberries, sugar snap peas and baby carrots are naturally appealing as healthy, ready-to-eat snacks.”
But on top of that, she says, “it’s important to emphasize simple meal solutions and easy ways to incorporate fresh produce into everyday routine. Spring is also a time when families are looking for lighter, fresher options, so we position our products as both nutritious and easy to prepare.”
Consumers, she says, respond well to simple recipe ideas, usage inspiration and nutritional benefits. They want quick, approachable ways to serve fresh produce.
Babé Farms doesn’t market specifically to families, but its sales department is part of school programs. The company works with them directly or through distributors to encourage them to serve specialty produce in their schools and put them on menus.
“It gives kids something fun to encourage them to eat healthier and eat their vegetables,” Hiltner says. “We have so many unique vegetables that kids are interested in just because of how they look.”
Programs like these mean the kids then educate their parents about the produce, he adds.
“It’s not directly marketing, but that’s how we’re getting the specialty vegetables to kids and instilling at a young age that produce can be fun and not boring,” Hiltner says.
Families are an important part of the California Avocado Commission’s target audience. This year’s campaign features multigenerational California avocado grower families, as well as family-focused lifestyle content that shows how California avocados fit into everyday meals.
“By pairing those scenes with real grower stories, we’re connecting the family at the table with the family in the grove in a way that feels genuine and relatable,” says Melban.
Happy Dirt provides activity books for retailers to hand out in produce departments, and these are popular with children, says Meadows.
However, the company reaches children even more so through its career fairs, which it holds every fall and spring in elementary and middle schools.
“We take our fun, bright merchandise, which kids love, then they take it home and their parents look at it,” Meadows says. “It makes organic produce, and produce in general, fun.” After a recent fair, one kid even called the company to learn about how to grow tomatoes at home.
“It’s really cool to educate kids that you can have a career in produce and you can be a farmer, and here’s how you can prepare and eat produce,” Meadows points out. “It’s sweet to see these kids get so excited about it.”
Happy Dirt also works with a local high school’s creative marketing design program every spring. Students can create advertisements, general marketing collateral or redesign packaging based on what appeals to them.
“Through these small ways we can market to families,” says Meadows.
Yo Quiero’s messaging on convenience and versatility and the ability of its dips to work for multiple dayparts and occasions plays into busy families, says Murray.
“We also emphasize products that are easy to serve and share, like our Grab & Go sizes and family-friendly flavors, making it simple for parents to have something on hand that everyone will enjoy,” she says.
Parents also appreciate that Yo Quiero’s products are made with fresh, recognizable ingredients, and they appreciate quick recipe ideas, Murray adds.
“They also value versatility — knowing one product can be used in multiple ways,” she says.
The company supports that with recipes, digital content and influencer partnerships that highlight easy, nutritious meal ideas, “something that resonates strongly with busy households,” she adds.
At the end of the day, education through marketing can boost sales of spring produce and make it more appealing.
“A lot of our success is just demystifying produce and taking away the intimidating factors,” says Maynor. “A cauliflower shouldn’t be scary.”
