27 Vanguard Communications Employees To Spend April Supporting Local Farmers and Discovering Where Their Food Comes From

WASHINGTON, D.C.â??The staff of Vanguard Communications wants to know whoâ??s producing their food, and theyâ??re going to spend the month of April finding out.

For 15 years, the Washington, D.C., public relations firm has worked to resolve the nationâ??s most pressing social issues, including supporting and fostering agriculture initiatives that protect the economic viability of farm families and their communities, as well as their health and environment. Now, in order to better understand the barriers consumers face in identifying and choosing locally and sustainably produced food, the companyâ??s staff has created and committed to a one-month â??Buy Local Challenge,â?? in which individuals (and in many cases, their roommates, families and friends) will conduct a living experiment by attempting to consume only those foods that are locally and sustainably grown.

Beginning April 1, 27 of 31 Vanguard employees will try to give up fast food, boxed macaroni and cheese and other staples of the busy consumer in order to discover who or what is producing much of their daily nourishment. Each participant will try to buy as much of his or her food as possible from local farmers and food producers. Each staff member also will keep a diary about how easy or difficult it is to find and buy locally grown food and how the challenge has altered eating habits.

â??Vanguard Communications has worked for many years to encourage consumers to buy locally produced food that is grown in a way that is environmentally and economically sustainable for the community,â?? said Maria Rodriguez, president of Vanguard Communications. â??We realized that we needed a better understanding of how easy or difficult it is to buy local in order to more effectively help consumers make better food choices. The staff is already gathering information on locally grown food sources and sharing recipes. Itâ??s turning out to be a tremendous bonding experience.â??

Rodriguez said the Vanguard Buy Local Challenge represents a living application of social marketing strategy, which employs Madison Avenue advertising and marketing techniques to sell social concerns.

â??We feel like our staff is representative of much of the urban buying public, including singles, families and empty-nesters, so we wanted to create our own social â??incubatorâ?? to find out what barriers need to be removed in order for consumers to support local farmers,â?? said Rodriguez.

For the month of April, Vanguard Communications has designated its Web site, www.vancomm.com, as the virtual home of the Buy Local Challenge. The firm will post daily journals of selected staff members so consumers can follow their experiences, including singles living on a budget, families with children, roommates and couples with divergent eating habits, and aspiring healthy eaters. The journals will be updated regularly and will be accompanied by bios and photographs of the staff.

The firm turned to Tim Bowser, executive director of FoodRoutes Network, one of its sustainable agriculture clients, to set the â??rulesâ?? for the challenge. Foods will be considered local if they are grown in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia or Pennsylvania. Some foods are not grown in this region, such as wheat or coffee, but there are other factors the staff will consider in those instances, as well as in choosing the locally grown products. They include:

1. Was the food produced by family farmers? If not, was it grown, harvested and produced in a socially just way (i.e., farmers and workers paid fairly)?
2. Is it organic? Were chemicals or pesticides used?
3. How much money went into the packaging, transportation and marketing of the product? (The product that has the most direct route from the farmer to the consumer is usually the most environmentally sound and gives the most money to the farmer/producer.)
4. What impact did food production have on the local environment (i.e., contamination from waste lagoons)?
5. Does the product rely on hormones, antibiotics or additives of any kind to give it its traditional color or flavor?
6. If animals were involved, were they treated humanely?
7. Were genetically modified organisms (GMOs) used in the production of the food?

â??Vanguard is really â??walking the walkâ?? by taking on the Buy Local Challenge,â?? said Bowser. â??As someone who has worked in the sustainable agriculture movement for many years, Iâ??m impressed that they are immersing themselves in such a creative way to help educate consumers about how important it is to support local farmers and local economies.â??

Vanguard will be providing a locally, sustainably grown lunch for its employees at the companyâ??s monthly staff meeting. There will be informal and formal events throughout the month, and the company has set up a listserv for participants to share recipes and food resources. Several staff members are planning trips to local dairies, food cooperatives and family farms in order to share products with fellow participants. Some participants are so excited about the project that they have purchased shares in a community farm, and are participating in local urban garden projects.

Rodriguez said she hopes the project itself will become sustainable.

â??Weâ??re very excited about the prospect of sharing the results of this experiment with our clients and consumers everywhere. Weâ??d like to see this project become a model program for helping consumers understand where their food comes from and for making smart choices based on that information,â?? said Rodriguez. â??We made a commitment to these issues many years ago, and our work with Farm Aid, FoodRoutes Network and the W.K. Kellogg Foundationâ??s Food and Society program has helped strengthen our resolve to create safe, sustainable, healthy food systems that benefit families and communities across the country.â??

Vanguard Communications is a Hispanic woman-owned firm specializing in communications campaigns that change attitudes, perceptions and behaviors, and shape public debate about critical social issues. Based in Washington, D.C., the firm was founded in 1987 to make high quality communications expertise available to cause-oriented organizations. Since its beginnings, Vanguard has focused its time, effort and experience on issues related to public health, health, mental health, safe food and farming, the environment, energy conservation, human rights, civil liberties, education, and other quality-of-life concerns.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 25, 2002

CONTACT: Brenda Foster 202-331-4323, bfoster@vancomm.com

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