Get Creative:  Marketing Local Food in Schools

Joan Tobin, Eat Local Food LLCMichaelle Rehmann, FSEP Farm to Food Service

Identifying your Customers

In a school setting,who are your customers?

• Kids• Teens• Parents • Teachers• School Administrators and 

School Board• Community Leaders and 

Local Business Owners• Other members of your local community

What will get your customers to buy?

What motivates a purchase?

• Emotion:  You have an emotional response to something you want or believe in.

• Education:  You have an educated response to something you've learned and believe to be correct or good for you.

• Trust:  You have a trust response to the person or the organization that is promoting the item.  You trust that the product or service is right for you based on your relationship with the person or organization.

What motivates kids to "buy"?FunTasteLearning Gardening Hands-on activities

Any other kid-motivators you can think of?

Your Goal =Connect Kids with the Food

Your Goal = Connect Kids with the Food

What motivates teens to "buy"?

• Popular Trends• Technology• Health & Nutrition• Appearance, Body Image & Social Status

Any other teen-motivators you can think of?

Your Goal =Connect Teens with the Food

Your Goal?  Connect Teens with the Food

What motivates Parents to "buy"?

• Health (of their children)

Any other parent-motivators you can think of?

Your Goal =Convince parents their children will benefit from 

your farm to school local food program

Your Goal = Convince Parents their Children will Benefit from Farm to School

What motivates Teachers to "buy"?

• Improved behavior• Better attendance• Greater attentiveness• Improved test scores

Any other teachermotivators you can think of?

Your Goal =Convince teachers that students will 

perform better in school.

Ways to accomplish this task:• Give teachers an announcement to read to their classes about a

local food item that will be served at the school.

• Supply teachers with a poster that they can put up in their classroom.

• Invite teachers to check out the classroom materials available on http://www.farmtoschool.org/ 

• and http://www.mn-farmtoschool.umn.edu

• Encourage teachers to work with their students on local food related activities such as creating posters, writing stories, organizing field trips to local farms

• Encourage teachers to teach fruits and vegetable identification in the classroom and coordinate their efforts with food served in the cafeteria.

• Suggest curriculum tie-ins with music, art and science classes.

What motivates Administrators to "buy"?• No impact to budget or 

an increased bottom line

• Improved test scores

• Good graduation rates and attendance rates

• Sufficient number of extra-curricular activities at school 

Any other administrator/school board-motivators you can think of?

Your Goal?Convince Administrators that the Farm to School Program will improve school metrics or key performance indicators

What motivates Community Leaders to "buy"?

• Bringing more business and dollars into the community

• Keeping those dollars in thecommunity

• Improved quality of life 

Any other community leader/local business owner motivators you can think of?

Your Goal =Convince Community Leaders that the Farm to School Program will

improve the health and welfare of the local community

How do you engage other members of the local community?• By getting yourself out in the community and being an advocate for

your school food program.• Conducting presentations at libraries, church groups, etc.• Hosting a "farm to school" booth at local festivals, farmers markets,

art fairs• Creating a farm to school video presentation to show on local cable

access television• Engaging volunteers to help you in this effort - parents, students,

other community members• Fundraisers that involve local grocery stores, churches, restaurants

and other popular community locations.• Issue press releases about your farm to school program• Issue a "farm to school" e-newsletter, start a Facebook group and

Twitter about farm to school menu items and other news.

How do you engage other members of the local community?

• ADVOCATE

• OUTREACH

• MEDIA

• COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

• SOCIAL NETWORKING

• FUNDRAISING

Cohesiveness is the Key to Success

Although you have many different customers with different buying motivators cohesiveness of your program is the ultimate key to success.

• Ask your customers to be volunteers for your program• Ask your customers to be advocates for your program• Cross-sell your program among your customers groups

o informing them of the benefits to each group and the community as a whole will cause them to see the total value of your program

• Be creative, think of ways that the local farming and business community could work with you to advance your program

• Don't try to do it all by yourself!