Fall in Massachusetts brings plenty of opportunities to get out and enjoy what local farms and fairs have to offer, from picking apples and pumpkins with the family to exploring a corn maze or taking a hayride. But with so many options across the Commonwealth, knowing where to go can be a challenge. That is where Massachusetts Grown...and Fresher comes in. You're listening to WOSD News: Procurement Insights. I'm your host, Layla Palmer. In this episode, we are joined by Rick LeBlanc from the Department of Agricultural Resources. He is here to share how the Commonwealth connects residents with local farms, farmers markets and agricultural fairs while promoting the benefits of buying locally grown products and supporting Massachusetts commerce. Rick: Hi, my name is Rick LeBlanc. I work with the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, MDAR for short. I've worked over 25 years in the Division of Markets, specifically on the MassGrown..and Fresher program. The MassGrown...and Fresher initiative is the state's marketing program that started back in the late 80s as a tool to help identify and source local food and agricultural products grown in Massachusetts. We offer a website portal with updated seasonal crop information as well as an interactive map that features over 2,000 retail farms, farmers markets, and fairs across the Commonwealth. The MassGrown Map is mobile friendly and allows users to search all types of retail farms from major types of farms such as pick your own farms, farm stands, nursery garden centers, ag-tourism with corn mazes, as well as unique crops and products such as honey and mushroom growers. Besides farms, it also lists over 200 farmers market locations, as well as over 30 agricultural fairs across the state. Over the past five years, we would average over 200,000 visitors to the map with over a million searches on it. In Massachusetts, we have a diverse number of small farms and medium farms close to a large population, and most farms sell directly to the consumers. Even as a small state compared to the rest of the country, we're still in the top five for direct sales, consumer sales, and we're still number two in the country for cranberries. Layla: Yeah, that's awesome. I'm certainly one of those 200,000 visitors to the MassGrown map. I have it bookmarked on my phone because, especially when fall comes up, I love to do the pick your own apple picking and pumpkin picking and I love a corn maze. So I am definitely one of the people that is using that map pretty often. How does promoting locally grown agriculture and commerce help support the broader mission of the Department of Agricultural Resources? Rick: Our mission is to cultivate a robust and equitable economy, promote a safe and resilient food system, and preserve a healthy environment for Massachusetts farmers, animals, and the public at large. We in the Division of Agricultural Markets are charged with promoting and supporting a healthy and robust food system. Promotion can range from agency-sponsored events with our commissioner, attend trade and food shows, post press releases when crops are in seasons, create e-news, and social media posts. The more we educate and encourage consumers to buy local and show them the benefits of eating mass-grown products the more it adds to the local economy and increases business to our farms and food supply. Layla: And what is the busiest season for MassGrown? You said cranberries are one of the top things that you guys are growing. What season is that? Rick: Cranberries specifically get harvested in the fall, just like most things. You know, our busiest farm season tends to be August, September, but our first crop of the year starts, funny enough, in March. People oftentimes think maple syrup is just Vermont or Canada, but we have a healthy amount of farming for maple syrup that starts in March. So we kind of look at that as our first crop of the year, run into asparagus, and then flowers is also one of our leading crops in the state as well, flowers and plants. And then we go all the way to the gamut to Christmas trees in the end. Layla: That's awesome. So the COVID-19 pandemic, it threw a lot of things out of whack, but it certainly had an impact on local food systems and the supply chains. How did that shape your approach to promoting that local agriculture and connecting residents with more mass-grown products? Rick: So initially the pandemic exposed how fragile our food system can be when it's interrupted. The public at large realized in the face of these global and national supply chain issues that they could still find local food sources at local farms and farmers markets, which were frankly always there. But oftentimes the public didn't really know they had a farm nearby. So when that happened, we heavily promoted the MassGrown map to find local produce and products and farmers markets, but as well as address the wholesale chain interruptions when we developed and launched the MassGrown Exchange. We unveiled it at the time with the Lieutenant Governor via Zoom as a platform for farms and businesses to connect. It allows users to create listings of what crops and products they might have or have extra, as well as buyers can post what they were looking for to bridge the gaps within the local food system. The pandemic actually initiated the Food Security Infrastructure Grant Program to support infrastructure projects to improve the local food production with our farmers and strengthen the local food supply chain. There are so many resources available through MassGrown, and OSD provided some of the tools that help bring them to the public. The Department of Agricultural Resources used Statewide Contracts for advertising and marketing services to support this work and expand public awareness. Let's learn how the expertise of Statewide Contract vendors in the Professional Services category helped share the MassGrown...and Fresher story. Layla: Your agency did use Statewide Contracts for creative communications and marketing services to help support this work. What kinds of outside expertise through those contracts were most useful in sharing the MassGrown...and Fresher story? Rick: Yeah, so the last couple of years we had a marketing budget to further enhance our promotion of the MassGrown program, which we use to spotlight and highlight many unique farms in Massachusetts. We enlisted bids and secured services in the professional marketing category to assist us in creating and securing ads through the many marketing channels. Layla: How did those services help improve the public's interaction with MassGrown, whether through branding or media outreach, digital tools like the MassGrown Map, or the portal? Rick: So marketing has changed immensely. Specifically for ads, how ads are disseminated have changed a lot in the 20 years from traditional newspapers and TV. Now with the evolution of social media, it can be a dizzying array of advertising and promotional opportunities. But by contracting with a marketing firm, they offered their expertise on how to reach the public at large. We had conversations on whether we should put it all into two TV ads or rather be judicious and focus on our target audience who decides on food purchasing in each home. We learned quickly that moms generally still make most of those decisions. So we targeted ads on social media to moms in Massachusetts. Then we had to look at which platforms mom used. This is where the marketing firm had research and experience to use our dollars wisely and focus on, say, for instance, Facebook or Instagram. They also had graphic designers that created beautiful fruits and vegetable ads, and our in-house experience had to remind them from time to time that images with bananas and pineapples probably aren't the best for Massachusetts. But they brought what they learned and we bring what we know and we worked together pretty well. Layla: Awesome. This is some really amazing work. I think there are some transferable strategies or lessons that other agencies could learn from you. So what can some other agencies learn if they're looking to promote programs, improve access to things for residents, and then just build stronger connections to the community? Rick: So part of my job spends a lot of time on the MassGrown website, and I've learned to recommend short, concise, clear websites. The public at large is in a competitive space for information, and as agencies we all need to make it easier for them to navigate good, clear information. One of the things when working with a company is make sure you have consensus amongst your own team when deciding the best strategies. And then you learn to leverage outside marketing firms while mixing in the in-house talent and expertise. Initially, it was good to have weekly meetings with the company that we used to make sure they understood our short-term and our long-term goals. The other thing I would recommend is make sure you ask for metrics. How did what you did do? It helped us guide and improve making recommendations for the next year and each year going forward. We've learned a lot through working internally and externally on what works and what doesn't work as well, but always trying to use the funding that we have each year as wisely as we can. Layla: What's one of your favorite things about working at MDAR and doing things with MassGrown? What are some highlights? Rick: I think over the years I've learned so much from my counterparts. I work with entomologists, experts in different fields, in food policies. I personally get a kick out of the up and coming fun, as you mentioned earlier, the Sunflower Festival weekend, we have a Garlic Fest weekend, we have an asparagus festival, and the Bee Fest out in Greenfield. Massachusetts has so many different unique things that I kind of get excited to promote to the different residents of my family, you know, within Central Mass doesn't know about this event out in Eastern Mass and such. There's a lot going on in Massachusetts that a lot of people don't realize. And I just want to help continue that growth so everybody knows about all these different great festivals and farms in Massachusetts. This concludes today's episode on Massachusetts Grown...and Fresher. Thank you to Rick LeBlanc for joining us today. To learn more about using Statewide Contracts for advertising, marketing, and event planning services, visit statewidecontractuserguide.mass.gov and navigate to the Professional Services contract category. And if you're looking for an agricultural activity this season, explore the interactive MassGrown map at massnrc.org/farmlocator or find the link in the description. Visit the OSD YouTube channel for more informative content, including training videos, webinars, and podcasts, with new episodes released each month. Be sure to subscribe and check back for future episodes highlighting the people, programs, and policies shaping public procurement in Massachusetts. This podcast was produced, engineered, and edited by me, Layvla Palmer. Thank you for joining us.
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