Verde Grown
In The Media:
https://www.journalaz.com/news/camp-verde/62713-local-growers-collaborate-as-verde-grown.html
https://www.verdenews.com/news/2021/jun/01/verde-grown-verde-valley-puts-stamp-local-agricult/
https://www.azfamily.com/shows/good_morning_arizona/jaimes_local_love/show_the_love/show-the-love-camp-verde-valley-river-tres-brisas-fasten-farms-strada/article_03a1d69e-cf9c-11eb-a530-d78e7f5d5bd3.html
August 2021 Update
Last month, LFA held the first of a series of three workshops designed exclusively for Verde Grown vendors. These are capacity-building events free to those registered as a Verde Grown member. We now have 39 local businesses in Verde Grown and the list keeps growing! This first workshop provided information on how to best take advantage of Verde Grown as a regional marketing initiative and get more exposure for their businesses. We also reviewed the success of the digital campaign in engaging local and statewide audiences online. Lastly, we ended the event with a speed networking activity to help facilitate new connections and encourage Verde Grown vendors to leverage each other for new business opportunities. This was a wildly popular activity and well-attended event.
We were very excited to share Verde Grown at the annual Corn Fest on July 17th. The well-known local family farm Hauser & Hauser supplies the corn for Corn Fest and since they have been a dedicated partner in the Verde Grown project, customers that bought corn from their stand also walked away with a snazzy Verde Grown canvas bag, fresh off the press from the local Whistlestop Print Shop. Another Verde Grown vendor, The Hoppy Goat Farm, was also there dishing up some refreshing apple cider slushies. Even though temperatures were sweltering and into the 90’s, Corn Fest brought folks from all over the Verde Valley and the event was an overall huge success.
We’re looking forward to supporting our vendors at more community events this fall and hosting the next two workshops on Marketing & Social Media Basics and Tapping into the Restaurant Scene. If you are a Verde Valley food or drink producer, sign up to join us at www.verdegrown.com and follow the fun at #verdegrown, @goodfoodfinderaz, and @localfirstaz!
Where It All Began:
The Verde Valley is commonly referred to as ‘the breadbasket of Arizona’ due to its fertile soils, access to the Verde River, and thousands of years of agricultural heritage. Appreciating the land, the river, and growing your own food is part of the culture and lifestyle of the Verde Valley, and the Town of Camp Verde wanted to build a project to celebrate and uplift that part of their community. So in 2020, with a grant from the USDA, the Rural team at Local First Arizona partnered with the Economic Development Department at the Town of Camp Verde to create a regional collaborative marketing initiative for local food and beverage businesses in the Verde Valley. This initiative would provide free marketing for local businesses and increase their business-to-business connections while improving access to healthy local foods and utilizing Verde Valley’s robust food system as an agritourism tool for the communities.
A Steering Committee of about 12 producers and local food advocates were convened to co-design a logo and brand that communicated the region’s connection to agriculture and signify what it means to be a Verde Valley resident supporting their own food system. The group described themselves as a hardworking community with simple lifestyles, connected to their historical roots and practicing ecological stewardship. With this in mind, the Committee navigated through several design phases and reiterations but eventually landed on naming the brand Verde Grown with the tagline ‘Proudly Grown in the Verde Valley’. The icon of the brand is the shape of Arizona with green rolling hills, a bright horizon, and the Verde River featured in the center at the heart of it all.
The Verde Grown label now represents local food businesses that identify with the values it upholds and is contributing to building a more resilient local food system. Those represented include farmers, winemakers, chocolatiers, micro-green growers, honey harvesters, coffee roasters, bakers, ranchers, and farmer’s markets from communities that include Cornville, Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Jerome, Sedona, Rimrock, and Camp Verde.
The Verde Grown brand campaign was launched online and through various media and subscription lists in April 2020, reaching over 40,000 people. Media outlets helped spread the word near and far, from the local town newspapers to the second most-watched news channel in Arizona. The LFA team attended community events like the Pecan & Wine Festival and Verde Valley Farmer’s Market, handing out free Verde Grown stickers, flyers, and reusable grocery bags to connect locals and visitors to the initiative. Since many Verde Grown vendors also attended the events, we were able to drive traffic directly towards them by sharing with passersby the importance of the Verde Grown label.
In addition, community leaders were engaged in the initiative by presenting Verde Grown to the Clarkdale and Camp Verde Town Councils, Yavapai College’s leadership, and the Verde Valley Food Policy Council. As part of the extensive community outreach conducted, LFA developed an inventory of local food stakeholders with over 100 food businesses and organizations that are now featured on the Eat Local Verde Valley permanent website! Consumers and businesses can use this public directory by going to www.goodfoodfinderaz.com.
We are excited to continue this campaign and grow the Verde Grown membership to strengthen the Verde Valley food system and drive new traffic to these amazing local businesses! Check out our current full listing of vendors and read more about the initiative at www.VerdeGrown.com.
