Background

New Jersey’s growers harvest about $279 million worth of fresh fruits and vegetables each year. In 2002, New Jersey’s top 17 vegetable commodities were valued at $152 million and New Jersey’s fruit production of apple, blueberry, cranberry, peach and strawberry production was valued at $93 million. New Jersey’s produce industry supplies our residents with some of the healthiest and freshest fruits and vegetables available anywhere.

Local access to large affluent markets has long been an advantage for the marketing of those products. While our markets are still there, competition for those markets has become tougher. New Jersey’s produce industry must continually work to rediscover its competitive advantages – access to nearby markets and consumer loyalty.

In 2004, over 2,500 retail supermarkets, community and farmer’s markets received Jersey Fresh point of sale advertising materials. On a national level, the Department began working with such national organizations as Wal-Mart, Dole, Melissa’s Produce, Ready-Pac and Fresh Express to explore ways that New Jersey can improve its position within the national 52-week supply cycle dominated by an increasingly consolidated produce industry.

In 2005, working with the Department of Corrections, and the School Lunch Program, government purchases of New Jersey produce are targeted to increase for the fourth straight year. The Department also will continue working to open new community markets, providing growers greater direct access to consumers. As a cornerstone to quality assurance, the Department will also be continuing to provide affordable third-party farm certifications.

The successes of the department’s produce promotion program are now being expanded to include other agricultural industries through the development of new brand extensions such as Jersey Grown, Jersey Bred and Jersey Seafood.

Produce Strategies

1.1 Jersey Fresh Hospitality Industry Program
1) STRATEGY – Develop a “Jersey Fresh Hospitality Industry Program.” The program will work closely with the industry and include many elements to strengthen the marketing of “Jersey Fresh’ produce to hotel, restaurant and institutional food service industries. The program will;
-1- Involve members of the N.J. Restaurant Association, Slow Food of Central New Jersey and local chapters of the Professional Chef’s Association.
-2- Promote participating restaurants to the public via the Internet and other means, including the NJDA website.
-3- Provide suppliers directories and point of sale advertising to the industry.
-4- Promote “Jersey Fresh” produce and menu themes to restaurants and culinary contests.

1.2 Increase Produce Branding
2) STRATEGY – Through the distribution of Jersey Fresh twist ties and other packing materials to growers and marketing cooperatives, the department will continue to expand the branding of Jersey Fresh produce at the point of sale

1.3 Promote Vertical Integration
3) STRATEGY - Encourage attendance at national produce industry trade shows, continue to work with representatives of nationally marketed produce brands and seek new methods to better integrate New Jersey’s produce industry into the year-round supply model.

4) STRATEGY - Promote centralized packing and increased participation in marketing cooperatives. This will provide better economies of scale to meet the packing, storing and regulatory requirements of big buyers, seeking quality standardization and better customer service.

1.4 Continue to Seek New Markets
5) STRATEGY - Continue working with the Department of Corrections to facilitate state Treasury purchases of over-produced and under-valued New Jersey farm products. Seek to have 2005 produce purchases by the Department of Corrections exceed $250,000 while increasing the numbers of growers registered to sell produce to state institutions. Continue to increase New Jersey farm products purchases for school lunch and school breakfast programs.

6) STRATEGY - Continue supporting fresh exports of New Jersey agricultural products to Canada. Maintain industry contacts and promotion of the Jersey Fresh brand through displays at produce industry trade shows in Canada.

1.5 Strengthen Existing and Seek New Community Markets
7) STRATEGY – Promote Community Market opportunities to growers. Maintain a current list of existing and new community farm markets seeking increased farmer participation. This list will be made available on the department website, distributed at grower meetings and printed in grower oriented publications.

8) STRATEGY - Promote the existence of community farm markets to the public. Maintain the interactive directory of community farmers markets on the department’s website and continue to offer community farmers market lists for publication in local papers. Distribute community farmers’ market lists to agencies responsible for distributing Farmers Market Nutrition coupons to seniors and participants in the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) nutritional program.

1.6 Expand Jersey Fresh Program
9) STRATEGY – Continue to strengthen the appeal of the “Jersey Fresh” brand to retail supermarket chains. Increase efforts to use the “Jersey Fresh” brand name to decrease the use of the “Locally Grown” product claim. The value added to the “Jersey Fresh” program by the Department’s leading third-party food certification program will be promoted to retailers as a part of the renewed brand promotion.

10) STRATEGY – Award Jersey Fresh matching-funds grants to applicants with the best past performance and greatest potential industry impact.

11) STRATEGY – Continue to broaden the “Jersey Fresh” promotional program to be more inclusive of all New Jersey produced fruits and vegetables, especially herbs, hydroponics and greenhouse produced fruits and vegetables and update “Jersey Fresh” Quality Grading standards to include non-traditional produce items if necessary.

1.7 Continue Third Party Farm Certifications
Continue providing affordable third-party farm certifications required by the produce industry. As consolidation continues in the retail produce industry, so will the trend toward requiring third-party farm certifications. In addition to high quality controls, consolidated retailers will be requiring the improved trace-back ability third-party certifications offer.

12) STRATEGY – Seek to provide cost effective and affordable third-party farm certifications and seek improved methods to communicate the benefits of the Quality Grading Program and Third-Party Farm Certifications.

1.8 Improve Retailer Coordination
13) STRATEGY – Continue weekly dialogue involving Department representatives, growers, producers, wholesalers and retailers of New Jersey agricultural products. Conduct farmer and buyer meetings to bring retailers, processors and growers together. Assist growers in identifying local and regional fresh market processors and determining the needs of those processors.

1.9 Explore Contract Growing
14) STRATEGY – Continue working to identify the economics of contract growing to enable growers to establish a market price prior to production thereby reducing their exposure to market and price volatility.

1.01 Identify Alternate Crops
15) STRATEGY - Expand the search for alternate crops that can be produced in New Jersey and identify channels of distribution for those crops. Continue the “Demographics and the Marketing of Ethnic Produce in the Mid-Atlantic States” research project that will identify new crops that can be grown in New Jersey and targeted at specific communities.

1.02 Value-Added Produce
16) STRATEGY - Evaluate Ethanol Plant Flash Freeze Co2 applications for a Value-Added Products Grant to study a possible ethanol plant flash freeze facility and conduct marketing research to evaluate flash freeze applications for vegetable & fruit products. In particular, marketing research will be conducted to evaluate the implications of flash freezing products for the school, institutional and foodservice markets.

17) STRATEGY – Continue to promote the availability of value-added grants and develop new proposals for the Value-Added Grant Program

18) STRATEGY – Following on the model of the Peach Marketing Taskforce, focus on a commodity item to benefit from the establishment of a marketing task force to address challenges associated with the production, distribution and marketing of that commodity.