Reduced Transportation Costs  Are First Step To National Marketing

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

Some ideas make so much sense that it is impossible to argue against them. Should California shippers attempt to negotiate collectively? Should the trade investigate the possibility of pooling shipments to generate full loads? Should producers be involved in efforts to reduce freight costs and to offer simplified pricing to buyers – the answers are yes, yes and yes!

These are all intelligent efforts to drive costs out of the system and simplify the decision to purchase flowers from California. This is imperative. It is a positive effort, but the world is a competitive place, always demanding that we do more and provide better value and a stronger sales proposition.

High U.S. wages, tough environmental standards, developing concerns about sustainability – all these trends and more tend to make it expensive to grow in the United States, and California is no exception.  Efforts such as those described in the study by the California Cut Flower Commission are thus not so much the solution as the ante required to compete at all. If we become lazy about costs… if we fail to innovate to bring costs down… we will certainly suffer.

Same thing with quality. An area such as California can only thrive by producing the best. So quality and cost-reduction require continual vigilance. Yet still more is required, and we would suggest some research efforts be focused on the locally grown movement and tying it in with branding.

One of the things that our own focus group series has indicated is that nationalism can be a powerful force for locally grown. It turns out that many consumers, who advocate for locally grown, don’t share the locavore notions of wanting everything to come from within 50 miles or 100 miles or some other arbitrary distance. Many seem to view local in an almost tribal manner, as a way of supporting their “team” – and that “team” can be a county, a state or a country.

Another key issue in local is that consumers want to perceive that things are grown in the “right” place, that the growers are authentic, with a history that gives a legitimate claim to the attention of consumers.

The California Cut Flower Commission is aware of all this, of course, and it fills its website with “Meet the Families behind the Flowers” promotions and similar efforts.

This is smart. Organizations such as the California Avocado Commission, with its “Hand Grown in California” slogan and prominent profiling of authentic California avocado growers in its marketing, has brilliantly developed a strategy to take a commodity grown in California and make it seem local and authentic to consumers all across the country.

Getting consumers to recognize California as an authentic growing region of flowers may be a formidable obstacle to effective marketing. Of course, necessity is the mother of invention, and the need to brand goes hand in hand with the opportunity to market. We would raise two questions:

First, is “California Grown” the right brand? The “California Grown” license plate logo is useful, but one wonders if it provides the optimal tool for this job. It may be very effective within California because consumers in-state feel an affiliation with California. Perhaps, though, a “USA Grown” program would have more appeal to consumers across the country.

When one goes to the CaliforniaGrown.org website, one gets appeals such as this:

You can do your part to help the state’s economy by looking for California grown products when you shop! From grocery stores and farmer’s markets to lumber yards and wine shops there are a variety of retail outlets that carry California grown products…

Many retailers in the state show their support for the “California Grown” campaign by placing the familiar blue license plate logo in their weekly ads near products that are locally grown. In addition, some retailers are taking the same idea further by placing signage in their stores to promote their California grown products. Make sure to look for the logo and signage where you shop and remember to “Be Californian, Buy California Grown!”

This may be an effective pitch, but it hardly seems designed to persuade people in Boston that they should buy flowers from California rather than Colombia.

A national marketing agreement or a marketing order may be difficult to put together, and California growers might recoil from the thought of promoting a few flowers that are not California-grown, but they should study it because, with 90% domestic market share, the growers in California might make more money with a more effective national pitch.

The second issue, once the brand is set, is how to use it. The key may be driving it at store level. How about a rack or cooler that exclusively sells “USA Grown” flowers? Then they could be more easily advertised, promoted and highlighted.

The California Cut Flower Commission deserves kudos for launching this transportation initiative to reduce costs. As the industry becomes more price-competitive, it opens up opportunities to compete more aggressively. Let us try to dream big and take advantage of the opportunity presented.