Many businesses, institutions and food pantries are striving to offer healthy, local, and sustainable food choices, but how can we encourage and excite eaters to make the healthy choice?  This webinar explores the role of promotion in healthy food choices, offer simple best practices and provide examples of promotion of in school, hospital, retail, and food pantry settings. Participants will learn about key concepts in healthy food promotion and gain some innovative ideas and resources they can use to engage and excite eaters in any setting.  Join Ecology Center, Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities, and Taste the Local Difference as we explore ways to promote healthy, local, and sustainable food efforts at your business, school, hospital, or food pantry!

1. Make healthy food
the easy choice!

2. TODAY’S PRESENTATION IS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
2

3. This grant-based project was created to provide support for
participating sites to implement evidence-based, healthy food
policy and environmental changes.
ABOUT
BUILDING HEALTHY
COMMUNITIES
Project
3

4. About the presenters 4
LINDSEY SCALERA
ECOLOGY CENTER
Farm to Institution Campaign
Director
HCWH Regional Organizer
lindsey@ecocenter.org
MEGHAN MCDERMOTT
GROUNDWORK CENTER FOR
RESILIENT COMMUNITIES
Food & Farming Policy Specialist
meghan@groundworkcenter.org
NICKI MILGROM
ECOLOGY CENTER
Sustainable Food, Healthy
Communities Program Director
HCWH Regional Organization
nicki@ecocenter.org
TRICIA PHELPS
TASTE THE LOCAL
DIFFERENCE
Operations Director
tricia@localdifference.org

5. agenda
1. Role of Promotion
2. Key Concepts
3. Best Practices
4. Examples
5. Q & A

6. GETTING STARTED
6

7. Why promotion?
! If you’re doing good work, share it!
! New offerings vs. old purchasing
habits
! Give your customers a nudge
! Help educate your community

8. Key concepts
8

9. Healthy 9
ENVIRONMENTAL NUTRITION
§ Healthy food comes from a
healthy food system
§ An apple’s path from farm to
plate can result in greater or
lesser health
§ Traditional Nutrition = eating the
right nutrients & food groups
§ Food components like
vitamins, carbohydrates, etc.
are a measure of health
§ EN = also examines the public
health impacts of social,
economic and environmental
factors related to the entire food
system

10. Local 10
Example: Health Care Without Harm
! Grown/raised and processed
within 250-miles of your facility.
! For processed foods with
multiple ingredients, including
breads and other bakery items,
only products with the majority
of ingredients (>50% by weight)
grown/raised and processed
within the 250-mile radius may
be considered local
ways to define:
! Radius/Travel Time
! “Foodshed”
! Grown in Michigan
! Look for MFIN Study Results later
this year!

11. Seasonal 11
Eating what’s in season
§ Peak harvest time usually
coincides with when flavor
and nutrients are at their
best.
§ Following local Michigan
seasonality guides
§ Food wont have to travel
far between harvest and
consumption, picked at its
peak!
From: http://foodsystems.msu.edu/uploads/files/Michigan_Produce_Booklet_.pdf

12. Sustainable 12
Broadly, Sustainability means:
Products produced in a manner that
limits the harm to the environment,
public health and animal welfare and
promotes societal and economic
well-being.
THIRD-PARTY CERTFICATION
! Most food buyers rely on national
or regional distributors to source
food
! Visiting the farm and creating your
own check list isn’t necessarily
going to work for a buyer
! Third-party certifications and
verified label claims offer
transparency and peace of mind

13. Healthy Food Environment 13
The food environment is…
§ The physical presence of food
that affects a person’s diet,
§ A person’s proximity to food
store locations,
§ The distribution of food stores,
food service, and any physical
entity by which food may be
obtained, or
§ A connected system that allows
access to food.
CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

14. Spectrum of Scale 14
• Don’t be afraid to start small
and scale up
• Try not to bite off more than
you can chew
• Learn about successful
models and choose what
works best for you

15. Spectrum of scale 15
Start small to build toward a big
impact
Promoting healthy food can
include something simple
(starting small) like:
! Signage and posters
! Monthly local features
! A series of brown-bag
lunch discussions
Or something larger & more
complex like:
! Cafeteria overhaul
! A farmers market
! An onsite farm or garden

16. Best practices

17. Attractiveness,
Visibility & Layout
§ Place fresh fruits and
vegetables at the beginning
of the shopping/dining area
§ Highly visible and easy to
get to
§ Visually appealing displays
with signage
§ Repetitive exposure

18. Convenience
§ Prepackaged fruits &
vegetables
§ Easy to find
§ Healthy recipes near
foods you’d like to
encourage

19. Remind & Prompt
§ Use signage, posters and
banners to support
§ Provide staff training and
encouragement to engage
with customers about
healthy items
§ Cooking demonstrations
and taste tests

20. Procurement & Storage
! Direct or indirect, find the
solution that works best
for you
! Flash-frozen products and
storage crops in off
seasons

21. Evaluation
§ Demonstrate & communicate your
impact!
§ Make a case for your work
§ Learn & improve
§ 1st = Define the purpose of the
evaluation along with end user of
findings
§ Determine progress toward
achieving outcomes
§ Provide accountability
§ Develop support & resources
§ Improve programs/policies
§ Ideally evaluation includes both
process & outcome evaluation

22. Process Evaluation
Will help improve the quality and
effectiveness of initiative, + identify
strengths, weaknesses & areas of
improvement
§ How many people affected?
§ How many written policies or
formal communications that
makes healthier food items
available?
§ How many contracts & purchasing
agreements adopted language?
§ How many training/education
opportunities provided & what
was quality?
§ How many placement changes
made? How many
promotions/labels implemented?

23. Outcome Evaluation
§ Assesses whether the expected
outcomes were achieved.
§ In developing, consider who will use the
evaluation results.
§ Think about short, intermediate & long
term outcomes
§ What percentage of food/beverage
offerings meet the defined standard
(nutrition, local, sustainable)?
§ What percent of healthier items are
promoted with signs or symbols?
§ What percent decrease in
meat/poultry purchasing?
§ What percent increase in locally
sourced produce?

24. Evaluation Plan Steps
1. Develop evaluation questions
- What do you want to know?
2. Determine indicators:
- What will you measure?
- What type of data will you need to
answer evaluation questions?
3. Identify data sources
4. Determine data collection method
5. Specify time frame for data collection
6. Plan data analysis & interpretation
7. Communicate Results
8. Designate Responsibility

25. EXAMPLES
25

26. School
§Cafeteria
§Garden
§Classroom

27. cafeteria
27
HTTP://TINYURL.COM/JUWR8L2

28. garden
28

29. classroom
29
FARMTOSCHOOL.TBAISD.ORG

30. Health care
§ Posters, Decals, & labeled
packaging
§ Monthly/Weekly/Quarterly
Features
§ i.e. Michigan Month – serving 3
MI-grown veggies every day
§ Local or Sustainable featured in
hospital retail
§ i.e. MI-grown dry beans bags –
same beans we cook with!
§ Establishing farms, CSA pick ups,
farmers markets on site
§ Fresh Prescription or other
Nutrition Incentive Programs

31. 31
SIGNAGE&POSTERS
BRONSON HEALTHCARE
BEAUMONT HEALTHCARE – ROYAL OAK

32. 32
FarmersmarketBRONSONMETHODIST
WINTERMARKET

33. 33
FarmersmarketBEAUMONTHEALTHCAREROYALOAK
SUMMERMARKET

34. 34
GARDENS&FARMS
THEFARMATST.JOSEPHMERCYHOSPITAL
HENRYFORDHEALTHSYSTEMWESTBLOOMFIELD

35. Retail
! Signage
! Eye-level, floor decals
! Local Produce Section
! End Caps
! Advertising
look up for loc
alchoices

36. Differentiate

37. PANTRY
! Serving with Dignity
! Self-shop
! Garden
! Promotion
! Art
! Nutrition Sheets

38. Father Fred Foundation 38
! Cooking
Demonstrations
! Coloring Sheets
! Displays
! Signage
! Recipes
! Garden
! Harvest of the Month

39. Lasting changes
39

40. Sustainability of changes 40
How to make an impact that lasts
! Multi-stakeholder engagement
throughout the process - it’s
not just you!
! Developing a policy
! Integrating Language into
contracts & RFPs
! Setting clear, time-bound goals
! Defining metrics to track
progress toward goals
! Deciding how often and to
whom to report on the
progress
! Join a larger network to stay
engaged

41. Sustainability of changes 41
How to make an impact that lasts
! Developing a policy
! Integrating Language into
contracts & RFPs
! Multi-stakeholder engagement
throughout the process - it’s
not just you!
! Setting clear, time-bound goals
! Defining metrics to track
progress toward goals
! Deciding how often and to
whom to report on the
progress
! Join a larger network to stay
engaged

42. Making your pitch

43. Making your pitch: Why?
Because we are a Community
Anchor
! Redefining commitment to
surrounding community
! Model healthier behaviors
Because we can harness our
purchasing power to:
! Increase the availability of local &
sustainable foods
! Have a positive economic Impact
! Increase transparency in the food
system (we know what are we are
serving)
! Tell the story of local farmers

44. RESOURCES

45. Find us Online
www.localdifference.org www.groundworkcenter.org www.localdifference.org
www.mifarmtoinstitution.org www.cultivatemichigan.org www.ecocenter.org

46. Find us Online
http://www.feedingamerica.org http://www.farmtoschool.org http://www.schoolfoodfocus.org
http://www.realfoodchallenge.org http://www.letsmove.gov http://whatscooking.fns.usda.gov

47. Questions & discussion
1. What questions
do you have?
2. What are you
working on or
thinking of
trying?
3. Are there
resources you
have had used?

48. Contact us
Tricia phelps
tricia@localdifference.org
Meghan mcDermott
meghan@groundworkcenter.org
Nicki milgrom
nicki@ecocenter.org
Lindsey scalera
lindsey@ecocenter.org

49. Thank you!