This page contains information of interest to farmers selling into retail markets, retailers and other buyers sourcing locally produced food, and service-providers providing technical assistance to both producers and buyers. Resources are organized by roles involved in retail markets.

Photo by Brunswick County Cooperative Extension Center.

On This Page

:Producers

• Feast Down East Farmer Standards and Handling Procedures: This manual from Feast Down East Processing and Distribution describes the steps in handling and marketing product in a safe and professional manner.
• Lowes Foods Locally Grown: A Guide to Retail for Potential Fresh Produce Vendors: This guide from Lowes Foods and Just Save provides an introduction to growers on how to get involved in the grocery store’s retail market.
• Local Food Manual for Farmers, Growers, & Vendors: This manual from Foster-Caviness serves as a resource to both, current and potential farmers, growers and vendors pursuing wholesale distribution of their products into mainstream markets including institution, schools, restaurants, and other foodservice entities.
• Niche Meat Production, Voluntary Labeling Claims, and the Approval Process: This NC Growing Together and NC Choices guide provides information to meat handlers about voluntary claims, definitions of common voluntary claims, and the requirements and further documentation needed to support those claims.
• Tips for Marketing Fresh Produce to Retail Grocers: Using PLU and UPC Codes: PLU and UPC codes are two widely used tracking mechanisms that help retailers efficiently ring produce into the register in the checkout lane, track sales, control inventory, and market products. Being knowledgeable about these labels in advance of approaching a retailer shows a grower’s awareness of the retailer’s industry. This fact sheet contains information adapted from the Produce Marketing Association.

• NC Growing Together: Explore collections of resources for producers, supply chain intermediaries, local/regional food business development, and educators, community and nonprofits.
• NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services: NCDA&CS has been partnering with buyers and county Cooperative Extension offices to network farmers with retail grocers and foodservice distributors. Check the NCDA&CS website for future opportunities, or if you are eligible, become a member of the Got to be NC program to receive periodic updates on NCDA&CS events.

:Retailers/Buyers

• Putting Local on the Menu: Tools and Strategies for Increasing the Utilization of Locally Raised Food in Restaurants and Food Service: The SCALE project is a two-part effort that first, examines how some food enterprises are making local buying work, and secondly, develops a tool that more accurately determines the real cost difference when buying local food. Check out their cost calculators for college and university dining services and for restaurants.
• Retailer Talking Points: How to Answer Consumer Questions on Local Meats: Learn about approved and unapproved claims and common claim questions.
• Bringing on New Local Niche Meat Producers — A Visual Guide and Checklist: To support the processes by which grocery store managers can come to know and become comfortable purchasing niche meat directly from farmers, NC Choices and the NCGT project created this visual guide and checklist, which can be adapted by retail grocers in North Carolina and other states for their own use.
• Bringing on New Fruit and Vegetable Farmers: A Visual Guide and Checklist for Direct-Store-Delivery: This document provides a template for grocers who buy fruits and vegetables directly from local producers. It provides guidelines for store managers so that they can set up local farmers as vendors who do “direct-store-deliveries” (DSD).

• NC Growing Together: Explore collections of resources for producers, supply chain intermediaries, local/regional food business development, and educators, community and nonprofits.

• Building Local Foods Sales in Retail Settings: Authenticity and Success in Marketing “Local”: This paper discusses previous research and the experiences of other initiatives around the country that indicate strong and transparent in-store promotional materials that communicate a package of characteristics including value/affordability, freshness/quality, and direct social impacts can increase local food sales.
• Holding Successful “Meet the Farmer” Events — Assessment and Recommendations: This document begins with a summary of the potential that local food holds for increasing grocery store sales and the role that events such as Meet the Farmer events play in cultivating a store image that reflects a commitment to local producers and the local community. We then outline the methods and analysis of the assessment and make recommendations for stores to hold effective Meet the Farmer events.
• Standards and Expectations of North Carolina Food Buyers: This report provides the results of the research study Local Food Harvest Handling Guide, a project conducted by the Local Food Research Center of ASAP with partners from around the state. The purpose of the project was to identify the communication and infrastructure barriers that prevent local specialty crop producers from meeting the standards and expectations of NC food buyers.

:Service Providers

• Scaling-up Connections between Regional Ohio Specialty Crop Producers and Local Markets: Distribution as the Missing Link: Ohio State University report exploring “the opportunities for scaling up distribution of local fruits and vegetables to retail outlets in Ohio by using conventional distribution methods.”

:Communities

• Healthy Food Access Portal: This website provides resources specifically for communities to increase food access by working with retail strategies. A good source of research updates, grant/funding and policy information

:Producers & Retailers/Buyers

• Wholesale Local Food Guide: A farm to business trade directory for Western NC and the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

• NC Growing Together Project: NCGT is a multi-partner project led by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. The goal of the project is to bring more locally-produced foods into mainstream markets, strengthening the economics of small to mid-size farm and fishing operations and their communities. The website provides research and resources for producers as well as retail and food service buyers.

• Selling Fluid Milk into Grocery Stores through Direct Store Delivery: This Extension publication will help you start selling fluid milk directly to grocery stores.
• How to Sell Shell Eggs into Grocery Stores through Direct Store Delivery: This Extension publication will help you get started marketing to grocery stores through direct store delivery (DSD).
• How to Sell Pastured Meat Products to Grocery Stores via Direct Store Delivery: This Extension publication will help you get started on connecting to community grocery stores, co-ops, and other retail stores through DSD.
• Tips for Marketing Fresh Produce to Retail Grocers: Using PLU and UPC Codes: Being knowledgeable about PLU and UPC labels in advance of approaching a retailer shows a grower’s awareness of the retailer’s industry.
  This fact sheet contains information adapted from the Produce Marketing Association (Produce Marketing Association 2013).