NW Michigan Food and Farming Network Report to the Community 2015 Report to the Community | Page 14

Food and Farming network

Tom’s Food Markets
Run With Local Food
Stores host extensive
marketing campaign
By Hans Voss
Michigan Land Use Institute
With all the support for local food
around here, why is there still a good
chance that when you stand in the
grocery aisles in May, you’re surrounded by asparagus—from Peru?
Or when you grab a shiny red apple
off the grocery counter in September,
it has a sticker that says “Washington”?
The simple answer: demand. Say
what you will about the American
food industry, but one thing we have
learned is that it still responds to
demand.
Decades ago, when customers realized they could
get fresh fruits
and vegetables
year-round, the
food industry
built the infrastructure to make
it happen.
Now, in the
spirit of unleashing the demand for
local food, Tom’s Food Markets is
leading the most energetic in-store
local food marketing campaign the
region has ever seen.
The assumption is this: If locally
grown and locally made products are
branded in an engaging, informative, and cohesive way, customers will
choose local.
The idea was tested in one of Tom’s

Christy Kuhnke, president of Tom’s Food Markets, shows off a TLD shelf-talker in
front of a Short’s Beer display in their 14th Street store. (Photo: Bill Palldino)

stores in 2014. Now, the model
can be seen in all six of Tom’s stores
and other stores around the region.
This is a crucial
first-step toward
dramatically expanding the local
food economy.
For Christy
Kuhnke, the president of Tom’s
Food Markets, it
comes down to a
value proposition—and she has confidence that her customers are ready
to go local.
“Given the opportunity to compare, we think they will find value in
the local products,” she said.
That insight is built on five generations in the grocery business.
Christy’s great-great-grandfather
raised cattle in Leelanau