Colorado Department of Agriculture officials are hitting the road for their first-ever statewide "Choose Colorado" tour this month, heading to communities to pump up their 14-year-old Colorado Proud program for labeling and promoting locally made agriculture and food products.
Standing just inside a Safeway store in south Denver Thursday, Colorado Agriculture Commissioner John Salazar noted there now are more than 1,900 companies in the initiative, ranging from farms to food manufaturers to breweries and wineries.
The state’s promotion of these companies — it spends $150,000 on the “Colorado Proud” program but leverages that into about $2 million more in advertising and marketing from major grocers and other food sellers — can refocus attention on them and help out farms that have suffered, he said.
“Buying local produce is a great way to support local farmers,” Salazar said. “Colorado’s agricultural industry continues to overcome adversity from drought, fires and recession, and consistently earns its ranking as one of the state’s top three industries.”
Colorado Proud launched in 1999 as a way to let people know where their food was coming from, long before the Great Recession made locally made products something that more and more residents sought.
While officials have labeled food with the program’s symbol and have gotten local stores to promote it, they felt the tour in a “Colorado Proud” car was needed because there remains a disconnect in people’s understanding about the origin of their food, said Wendy Lee White, marketing specialist for the agriculture department.
The tour will stop in Grand Junction, Durango, Alamosa, Salida, Greeley, Vail, Glenwood Springs, La Junta and Pueblo before ending on Aug. 23 at the Colorado State Fair, where Colorado Proud will have its own store. Farmers and food makers will meet state officials on the way to get the word out.
Robert Sakata, owner of Sakata Farm in Brighton, said Colorado Proud labeling has helped him to be able to sell his corn. But he noted that less than 2 percent of state residents are farmers and said they can struggle in years like the current one with extreme and fluctuating weather conditions.
“As you go on this tour across the state, I’d encourage you to hug a farmer,” Sakata said before getting bear-hugged by Safeway marketing vice president Joe Perry. “There’s fewer and fewer of us out there, and I appreciate you to support us.”
Perry noted that consumers have begun to pay closer attention to the Colorado Proud labeling in recent years.
“Our customers respond well,” he said. “More and more people are asking for local produce. So, we want to carry everything we can.”