Creative Choice Winner: Needler’s Local Food Fest
Written By: Lindsy Warnecke
AR Marketing prides itself in serving independent business owners nationwide. Recently, Needler’s Fresh Market won the 2022 National Grocers Association Creative Choice Award for Community Engagement with the help of our team’s marketing efforts. It means a lot to our agency to help our clients get recognized on a national scale.
Last fall, Needler’s Fresh Market organized a Local Food Fest to highlight and champion local makers, while bringing unique and exciting new products to engage their customers. This event reinforced two cornerstones of their mission:
Nourishing Our Communities’ and Delighting Our Customers
The event was held over a weekend in August - the prime season for fresh local produce, flowers and more. To promote the event, our team created in-store signage, online messaging and multiple segments of local media coverage.
To highlight one farmer, Indy Now news outlet followed Fresh Encounter Inc. (FEI) CEO Michael Needler Jr. to a local farm that provides blackberries to Needler’s Fresh Market, where owners were interviewed. They told the story of their transition from an alpaca farm to blueberries, and that now they are utilizing the bee activity around the blackberries to produce and sell local honey in stores too. This story is a unique look into FEI’s efforts to support their communities and source products that will surely delight their customers.
“We’re proud of our post-pandemic efforts to bring our local communities together to celebrate great food and talented makers. We pride ourselves on a strong connection to local vendors and we place a strong emphasis on delighting our customers.” - Needler’s Fresh Market
