TLD Expands Statewide

Screen Shot 2016-01-08 at 2.49.49 PMMedia Release

For Immediate Release

Date:               January 10, 2015

Contact:          Bill Palladino, [email protected], (231) 590-1685

Taste the Local Difference® Announces Statewide Expansion

TRAVERSE CITY – Taste the Local Difference®, Michigan’s local-food branding and marketing program, will expand its services to farmers, food processors, food purveyors, and communities across Michigan starting in January 2016.

Taste the Local Difference® (TLD) has become an iconic brand, helping to market and sell local food in northwest Lower Michigan for more than a decade. Its mission is to “help food businesses and communities benefit from the economic value of local food while making fresh, healthy, local food available to all.” TLD first appeared in 2004 as a small booklet listing farms and restaurants in five counties around Grand Traverse Bay. Since then it has grown to include a robust set of online, mobile, and print resources for local food businesses. Its annual Guide to Local Food magazine, TLD’s flagship product, is distributed to more than 45,000 consumers annually.

In 2016, TLD will begin offering its services to the local food community across the state. TLD has already expanded to Washtenaw County, all 15 counties in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and 11 counties in northeast Michigan. At the start of 2016, Taste the Local Difference already represents a total of 37 counties across the state, and will now expand its coverage statewide.

TLD offers a basic set of marketing resources to farms, farmers, and farmers markets at no cost. Additional marketing support can be added using an inexpensive fee-based system. Value-added food producers, food hubs, restaurants, retail stores, markets, wholesale distributors, schools, hospitals, and other large businesses can also benefit from TLD’s local food marketing strategies. All of this is available at a very reasonable cost, scaled to meet the needs of each business.

TLD also provides, through its OnePantry.org website, an online tool for food pantries and meal sites to engage with potential clients, find food donations, and conduct private online chats with businesses interested in donating food. OnePantry.org is available free of charge to communities.

Taste the Local Difference® is extending all of these services to the entire food system across Michigan in 2016. To learn more about Taste the Local Difference® and how this marketing program can help your farm, food business, institution or community realize the economic and social value of local food, visit their website at www.localdifference.org.

For more, information, please contact Bill Palladino at 231.590.1685, [email protected], or visit http://localdifference.org.

 

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Taste the Local Difference® is a social enterprise of the Traverse City-based Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities. For more than 20 years, Groundwork has focused on three areas to create stronger, more vibrant, and resilient communities: transportation, clean energy, and food and farming. Groundwork’s Taste the Local Difference® program is a recognized leader in developing new models for local food systems in Michigan and elsewhere.