February 24, 2020
Hello Woodland Business Community,
This month, we are celebrating the one year anniversary of our Raley's & The Food Front partnership! We hope you enjoy this dedicated newsletter about this project.
What has been accomplished this past year?
- A Launch party in Feb 2020 at Woodland's Raley's attended by over 150 participants, where The Food Front partners gave away product samples, our community mingled, keynote speeches were given by Raley's owner Mike Teel and others (glad we got this event in before covid!)
- Integration of over 175 Woodland-grown products from 13 local businesses into the partnership, featured at Woodland's Raley's & Bel Air stores and identified via The Food Front (FF) shelf tags throughout the stores.
- One end cap reserved for rotating The Food Front products at the front of both Woodland's Raley's & Bel Air stores.
- A cooler end cap partially reserved for refrigerated The FF items
- A "barnyard look" Floor display with 3-4 FF products & a Food Front Recipe Card, featuring each of these products in a locally crafted recipe.
- A rotating island display.
- Complete online shopping presence for all 175 The FF products HERE!
- A brand new campaign in collaboration with Yolo Food Bank that will benefit food insecure community members, through March 14th.
- Periodic giveaways of The FF products on social media (Woodland Raley's & Bel Air FB pages & The FF IG page) to engage our digital community.
- Overall increase of sales and visibility of Woodland-crafted / The FF products.
Furthermore, and in case you missed it, we have included an exciting announcement with AgStart & Raley's at the close of this newsletter.
A BIG THANKS goes out to the Raley's team - especially Mike Teel, Chelsea Minor, Johanna Abasto, Sarah England, and store leaders for their enthusiasm to support Woodland's food & ag industry through this project!Please read on to dive into specific opportunities that Raley's has provided our local businesses through our partnership.
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Raley's Food For Families, Yolo Food Bank & The Food Front Launch ‘Love for Our Woodland Community’ Campaign
Raley’s, the Yolo Food Bank and the City of Woodland’s The Food Front* initiative have launched a campaign to benefit local businesses and local families experiencing food insecurity. The eleven participating Woodland businesses**, otherwise known as “The Food Front Partners,” are paying it forward by sending up to 5% of their revenue for each of their products sold at Woodland's Raley’s and Bel Air locations directly to the Yolo Food Bank through March 14th. In other words, simply by purchasing any of the 175 Woodland-crafted products, community shoppers will help generate funds for the Yolo Food Bank.
"We are excited to launch our very first 'Love for Our Community' campaign this year in partnership with The Food Front and Yolo Food Bank," noted Becca Whitman, Executive Director, Raley’s Food For Families. "The synergy between local businesses and the local non-profit sector is a crucial component in combatting the challenges our communities face every day."
Shoppers can find Yolo Food Bank's signage by The Food Front end cap, along with signage, including shelf tags, floor displays, and end caps to easily distinguish all locally crafted Food Front products throughout the stores. For those who prefer to shop online, The Food Front banner on the dedicated page with all products is available on the shop.raleys.com page directs shoppers to a page exclusively for all Food Front products: https://shop.raleys.com/shop/collections/6169775. These Woodland crafted products such as almonds, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tortillas, salsa, craft beer, and a variety of canned fruits, tomatoes and sauces are included within this campaign.
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“As demand for food access trends upward during the pandemic, this campaign creates a tangible way for our community to support the ongoing efforts of the Yolo Food Bank by simply shopping at our neighborhood stores,” said Tom Stallard, City of Woodland Mayor.
Weekly social media posts will be shared from Raley’s, Yolo Food Bank, and The Food Front to share the stories of each of the participating Food Front partners and highlight their locally crafted products.
We look forward to having our community seize the opportunity to support both those in need as well as our local businesses through the ‘Love for our Woodland Community’ campaign at both the Woodland Raley’s & Bel Air stores.
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*The Food Front is a City of Woodland-led initiative that celebrates the sustainable, local, and innovative practices of our 190+ food & ag businesses in Woodland. This branding of Woodland’s food & ag industry serves to elevate the wealth of knowledge, history, and innovation in our city across all sectors – from growers, processors, manufacturers, food service, retailers and more. The Food Front & Raley’s partnership brings local products into the hands of our local community.
**The following Food Front partners have joined this campaign and are direct contributors to the campaign: Almond Lane, Blue Note Brewing, Bright People Foods, Cobram Estate, Hinode Rice, La Tourangelle, Matchbook Wines, Micaela’s California Fresh, Pacific Coast Producers, Seka Hills, Z Specialty Island of the Moon Honey. |
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BUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIP TOGETHER - PUTTING OUR BUSINESSES FRONT AND CENTER
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Rotating floor displays & recipe cards featuring Food Front products add additional in-store presence for our local businesses
The best part of this partnership is working hand-in-hand with our local businesses. See below for an overview of the new The Food Front Floor displays, built in collaboration with our businesses!
Nov 2020 - Jan 2021 Floor display: Starting in November 2020, the City, Raley's & Matchbook Wines teamed up to design the first The Food Front Floor display - designed to spotlight local products, while incorporating The Food Front signage and branded items from the featured businesses. A big thanks goes to our businesses who donated branded components to make the display stand out: a Matchbook wine barrel, antique Hinode Rice bags, a canvas recreation of the Pacific Coast Producers tomato mural, and live olive trees from Cobram Estate. To show interconnectivity between products, a recipe including each of the featured products within the display was developed and placed in the center of the display as a "Food Front Recipe Card" to engage with shoppers. See below for the first Food Front Floor display, built in collaboration with Raley's, Matchbook & the City.
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 The November 2020 - January 2021 floor display, featuring Matchbook Wines, Cobram Estate, Pacific Coast Producers, and Hinode Rice
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Jan - April 2021 Floor display: Based on the success of this first floor display, the City & Raley's extended the invitation to ALL Food Front partners featured in the January - April display to not only participate in the brainstorming phase, but also the build out. The build out day proved to be an opportune moment for Almond Lane, Z Specialty, Seka Hills, Raley's and the City to safely meet in person and work together in the hands-on development process.
Stop by to check out the current display, which featured each of these Food Front partners' products, along with fun elements, such as a beehive from Z Specialty, live cover crops (and informational material about their importance!) from Almond Lane, and olive trees from Seka Hills. You also may notice some cool chalk logo drawings of each of our Food Front business' brands on the display, drawn by Virginia Valdez Sandfer from Matchbook Wines. Don't forget to grab a Food Front recipe card for the Almond & Extra Virgin Olive Oil Honey Bread - featuring each of the products available at the display. |
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 The January Floor display, featuring Seka Hills, Almond Lane, and Z Specialty
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ALL FOOD FRONT PRODUCTS NOW AVAILABLE ON RALEY'S ONLINE SHOPPING PORTAL
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Regardless of product sales volume, all Food Front products are available on the Raley's ecart, when selecting the Woodland Raley's & Bel Air locations.
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Want to learn more about The Food Front & Raley's partnership?
Contact Stephanie Burgos: stephanie.burgos@cityofwoodland.org
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RALEY'S SPONSORS THE LAB@AGSTART
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In case you missed it in the news....
On Feb 3rd, AgStart announced that Raley’s, the family-owned regional grocery chain, will sponsor the Raley’s Food Lab at The Lab@AgStart incubator in Woodland, California.
The Raley’s Food Lab will be a certified food facility where innovators can develop new food products, ingredients and recipes for taste testing, sampling and small-volume sales. The facility will be fully outfitted with kitchen and food preparation equipment and will be reservable for use by established and aspiring food entrepreneurs.
The Raley’s Food Lab will provide an ideal location for food entrepreneurs to experiment and test new foods and food ingredients in a region renowned for its vibrant agriculture and food innovation ecosystem. Raley’s will also provide entrepreneurs with mentorship and support to help scale their businesses to prepare to sell at retail. Yolo County is known for its diverse agricultural production, and Woodland is the home of several global and local food processing firms [...]
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 The Lab@AgStart on Main Street in Woodland, CA
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We're here to support you through this challenging time. Please contact us at the email addresses below (do not reply to this email).
We furthermore encourage you to periodically visit our COVID-19 Business & Employee support page and the business & employee FAQ page.
We look forward to connecting with you. |
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