As demand for locally grown produce rises, states are stepping up their homegrown branding programs to keep shoppers buying local.
For example, New Jersey is rolling out Jersey Fresh PLU stickers, California is marking its California Grown program’s 25th birthday, Colorado Proud is debuting a Hispanic-focused logo, and Michigan is expanding its new Farm to Family initiative.
Jersey Fresh
New from the Jersey Fresh program this summer are PLU stickers for tomatoes that will enable growers to affix Jersey Fresh labeling to products before shipping them to retailers, says Joe Atchison III, assistant secretary for the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
“We plan to grow this line of labeling out over the coming seasons so that consumers can see Jersey Fresh on the shelves and easily identify locally grown products,” Atchison says.
Jersey Fresh is one of the nation’s oldest and most recognized state-sponsored agricultural marketing and quality grading programs, he adds.
Hundreds of New Jersey fruit and vegetable growers participate in the program, which is also supported by an extensive network of retailers, including farm markets, independent grocers, wholesalers and major supermarket chains throughout the Northeast.
New Jersey growers harvest more than 100 varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables. Signature products include tomatoes, blueberries, peaches, sweet corn, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, squash, cranberries, spinach, lettuce and strawberries.
“The program highlights what is in season throughout the year, helping consumers identify and purchase locally grown produce at peak freshness,” Atchison says.
Promotional efforts include statewide advertising campaigns, digital marketing, social media outreach, public relations, radio and billboard advertising, point-of-sale materials, trade show participation, retailer partnerships, consumer education and seasonal promotions.
“The Jersey Fresh logo gives consumers confidence that the product was grown in New Jersey and meets the program’s quality standards,” he says.
California Grown
The California Grown program is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2026, says Cherie Watte, executive director. And the program continues to expand.
“We’re extremely busy activating programs,” she says. “Fairs are now embracing the use of the California Grown marketing and messaging in their agricultural marketing.”
A couple of California fairs already are using the California Grown logo, and more are expected to take part in the program.
California Grown operates a variety of marketing programs, Watte says, including “a very robust social digital program, a retail marketing program — in-store and digital — and many other iterations of retail marketing.”
There’s also foodservice marketing, nutrition education and much more, she says.
More than 400 fruits and vegetables are grown in California, and since the state’s growers harvest fruits and vegetables 12 months of the year, California Grown runs several programs that call out the year-round aspect.
“We have an entire category of promotions of ‘always in season,’” Watte says.
Those include prunes, walnuts, almonds and anything available in the marketplace to the consumer year-round.
Promotions for seasonal items like grapes and blueberries are offered as well.
Consumer support for California Grown is strong, Watte says.
“They recognize California Grown for its quality, freshness, consistency and for the stringent production standards under which the crops are produced,” she says.
Colorado Proud
The Colorado Proud program will help mark the Centennial State’s 150th birthday with the official release of a new Hispanic logo in August, says Danielle Trotta, senior marketing specialist and Colorado Proud program manager.
Some Hispanic and Latino businesses asked for the new logo, Trotta says.
“It makes good business sense, since Hispanics are the second-biggest population in Colorado,” she says.
Feedback was sought from Hispanic business owners and growers to help create the new logo, she says.
Colorado Proud also has seen significant expansion of its Colorado Proud School Meal Month in October.
The observance, which coincides with national Farm to School Month promoted through USDA, started as a one-day activity but was turned into a monthlong event last year.
More than 500,000 students from 36 school districts are involved in the effort to encourage schools to serve local product.
Colorado Proud was established in 1999 and has more than 3,000 members, including growers, manufacturers, retailers and farmers markets, Trotta says.
The Colorado Proud produce calendar lists availability of dozens of fruits and vegetables grown in the state. Apples, carrots, Palisade peaches, Pueblo chilies and Olathe sweet corn are some of the items consumers look for, she says.
The program’s goal is to have 70% awareness of the logo, and annual research is conducted to track that awareness.
“Our research has shown that people are more willing to buy produce if they know it’s from Colorado,” Trotta says.
Farm to Family
The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Farm to Family program was established in 2025 and already has an impressive list of accomplishments to encourage consumption of locally grown fruits and vegetables.
In December, the Farm to Family program and its partners launched the Good Food for Michigan Project, an initiative to help schools, hospitals and other community institutions strengthen their supply chains and procure more nutritious, locally grown foods, says Tim Boring, MDARD director.
In April, the Farm to Family program partnered with the Michigan Farmers Market Association to launch the Farmers to Markets program to help increase Michigan families’ access to locally grown foods by attracting and retaining local growers at farmers markets throughout the state. MDARD will announce the Farmers to Markets projects across the state this summer.
In May, Farm to Family announced $2 million of Last Food Mile grants to help Michigan farmers and food businesses invest in the refrigerated transportation necessary to get fresh foods from farms to store shelves.
Since its inception, Michigan’s Farm to Family program has helped move nearly 200,000 pounds of Michigan-produced foods to market, generate more than $1.7 million in local food purchasing and serve more than 1,500 families through food clubs and other programs, Boring says.
“We’ve heard overwhelming feedback about the need to support food systems during our extensive listening tours across Michigan, and we shaped Farm to Family to meet those needs,” he says. “This program is a win-win from the farm to the fork and serves as an example of what bipartisan investment can deliver for our communities.”
Retailers Foster Winning Local Partnerships
Highland Park, Ill.-based Sunset Foods Inc. thrives on local produce.
The company worked closely with Lincolnshire, Ill.-based Didier Farms for about 60 years to source an array of local fruits and vegetables but switched to a new local grower when two Didier owners retired about three years ago, says Vince Mastromauro, longtime produce director for the chain of seven stores. (Sunset Foods added two Grand Food Center stores to its five Sunset Foods locations during the pandemic.)
Von Bergen Family Farms of Hebron, Ill., now provides Sunset Foods with local fruits and vegetables throughout the summer and well into the fall.
Mastromauro says he looks forward to the arrival of local product, as do the stores’ shoppers.
“When you have a rhythm or a season to something, you anticipate bringing in all these items starting in late July,” he says. “The same anticipation is there for the customers.”
The season starts off with what may be the most popular of all the local items: super-sweet bicolor corn.
“That is the sweetest, most tender corn I’ve ever had,” Mastromauro says. “For any locally grown program, especially here in the Midwest, you’ve got to have an excellent bicolor corn to start the season.”
Next come green beans, waxed yellow beans, purple peppers, bulk basil that’s packaged in-store, cucumbers, pickles, eggplant, green bell peppers, yellow and green zucchini, vine-ripe tomatoes, tomatoes-on-the-vine and bins of large, 45-count watermelons.
There’s even some broccoli and cauliflower when they’re available.
Partnership Success
Von Bergen Family Farms operates a farm store and sells at various farmers markets but decided to give the retail side a try with Sunset Foods. The experiment was a success.
“We’ve grown [their program] every year,” Mastromauro says. Fall squashes, ornamentals and pumpkins are especially popular. “They’ve become a really big thing for us,” he says.
The pumpkins are exclusive to Sunset Foods.
Mastromauro talks with the Von Bergen grower in late October, when the squash program is winding down, and makes one last purchase that gets the stores through the Thanksgiving holiday.
The grower-retailer relationship is mutually beneficial.
Sunset Foods can attract additional customers by offering fresh, flavorful foods that travel a much shorter distance than product from wholesalers used by competitors, he says. And Sunset Foods gives the grower another avenue in which to sell its product.
Consumers familiar with Von Bergen Family Farms appreciate the convenience of picking up local produce at the supermarket without the hassle of traveling to the grower’s farm store or visiting a farmers market location, he says.
Mastromauro is able to offer his customers a value price through “pretty simple” negotiations with Von Bergen Family Farms.
“I’m very fair, and he’s very fair,” Mastromauro says. “You want to be fair to the local grower, and he wants to be fair to you.”
Mastromauro labels product from Von Bergen Family Farms as local and also has a Midwest category that consists of items like red and green leaf lettuce, romaine and romaine hearts from a wholesaler who sources from a farm in Michigan.
Sunset Foods spares no effort when it comes to promoting its local fruits and vegetables.
The stores’ marketing department puts together signage, and members of the produce team drive out to the farm for a photo op sitting on a tractor or picking produce.
“We take advantage of the relationship and make a nice social media blast,” Mastromauro says. “We tell how our managers are in the field finding the best produce for you during the locally grown season.”
Local product also is promoted on the company’s website.
Mastromauro says he made a wise choice when he decided to partner with Von Bergen Family Farms.
“It’s a wonderful family who looks at us as another outlet and another way to get their name out there,” he says.
