These are the winners of Sustainable Produce Summit Marketing Awards

PALM DESERT, Calif. — It’s one thing to make sustainability a priority at your company. And it’s another thing to effectively communicate the efforts you’ve made and the benefits it’s creating to the earth and people.

Click here to watch the full 2022 Sustainable Produce Summit On-Demand. 

Five companies were called out for that great work in the second annual Best of SPS Marketing Awards, presented June 2 at the Sustainable Produce Summit. This event was a day before the June 3-4 West Coast Produce Expo.

These awards showcase how companies are using different tactics to tell their general sustainability stories, and also how they’re communicating about their efforts to combat food waste.

The program recognizes excellence in sustainability marketing in these five categories: packaging, social media, business-to-consumer messaging, website and retail promotion.

The selection process involved several departments across Farm Journal’s produce teams and was presented by Brock Nemecek, Farm Journal’s marketing manager for fresh produce.

These are the winners:

• Packaging: Los Angeles-based 4Earth Farms won for communicating tangible results in the packaging. “Our new fully compostable netted bag replaces a non-recyclable polypropylene plastic bag,” the contest entry said. “This plant-based fiber material is a new innovation, developed from natural beechwood fiber. This new pack will eliminate over 15,000 pounds of non-recyclable plastic.”

• Social Media: Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Gotham Greens won due to its partnership with the iconic Grateful Dead for a limited-edition packaging and marketing campaign that celebrates our shared commitment to sustainability, community and plant-based eating,” the entry said. For every package of Grateful Greens sold, Gotham Greens and the Grateful Dead will plant trees in partnership with Forest Nation. The posts and photos generated thousands of likes and hundreds of comments across platforms.

• B2C Messaging: Wenatchee, Wash.-based CMI Orchards’ simple, no-stress messaging — “Relax!” — to consumers was a favorite. The consumer-messaging strategy involved exploring, innovating, communicating and educating. The communicating component was about telling consumers about “the key sustainability benefits of the package in simplistic, easy to action terms,” the entry said, and the educating component was about “giving consumers a pathway to access more information from our website.”

• Website: Pure Flavor, the brand of Pure Hothouse Foods Inc., Leamington, Ontario, won for its layered, lifestyle storytelling on the company’s website and on other platforms that direct users to the website. The company’s cross-channel approach includes social media, consumer e-newsletters, digital e-books, a storybook and landing pages, including the homepage, Greenhouse Grown, Organics and Growing Your Business. “By pairing an ever-changing stream of relatable lifestyle content in all different mediums with in-depth educational materials explaining the growing process, health benefits and more – to both kids and adults – we use all the digital marketing tools at our disposal to tell our sustainability story,” the entry said.

• Retail Promotion: Brewster, Wash.-based Honeybear Brands has a powerful partnership with the Cub Foods stores. In partnership with the Minneapolis retailer, Honeybear Brands has developed, and continues to develop and maintain, a pollinator habitat alongside the orchards where Cub apples are grown. The Adopt an Acre program involves an in-store campaign during fall apple season, which educates customers on the importance of pollinators to the food supply chain through in-store signage and videos on social media. “A portion of proceeds throughout the campaign resulted in funds used to clear, plant and maintain several acres of healthy pollinator habitat,” the entry said. “We look forward to continuing this multi-year sustainability collaboration with a wonderful, committed retail partner.”

Related news: Check out last year's Best of SPS Marketing Awards winners.