‘Sweet Grown Alabama’ new slogan for state foods By M.J. Ellington
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF SWEET GROWN ALABAMA
he request that came to the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries in early 2019 seemed like such a simple one. A large supermarket chain wanted to feature Alabama-grown and produced foods in its stores. The company asked for the state’s marketing slogan and copies of its logo and branding tools used for promoting Alabama agricultural products. The problem was Alabama had no coordinated program to promote its agricultural products, no logo and no slogan. Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate had been in his job only a few weeks when a colleague broke the news about the exciting request and the challenge it presented. “He said, we’ve got a problem,” Pate says. During Pate’s campaign for the commissioner’s job, people kept telling him they want to know where their food comes from, so he could see the potential of such a program. “It is such a simple thing, grown local,” Pate says. “Farmers want to grow; consumers want to know where their food comes from. How can we get them together? My role was to start the process.” He sought help from Jimmy Parnell of Alabama Farmer’s Federation and Horace Horn of PowerSouth Energy Cooperative. About 10 years ago, Alabama attempted to develop a coordinated branding program as several states nearby have. Pate said the effort was a casualty of turf questions, but not this time. “Once they realized this is not going to be an issue on the campaign trail, they bought in. This thing will have a million fathers,” Pate says. Other states that have adopted such a branding program have had good results, another motivation to develop the branding tools here. By late summer 2019, the framework for Sweet Grown Alabama, a 501 C-6 nonprofit organization, was in place, dedicated to developing and operating the program. Pate, Horn and Parnell are its board of directors. Pate said he budgeted enough Agriculture Department funding to start the program with a goal to make the program self-sufficient and not dependent on future political tides.
Beth Hornsby owns and operates Hornsby Farms outside Auburn, which features 100 varieties of fruits and vegetables and a farm cannery. She feels the Sweet Grown Alabama program is long overdue and will be a help for the state’s farmers.
Dream job for a farm-raised girl
Ellie Watson, an Auburn University agricultural communications graduate who grew up on a family farm in Colbert County, was hired as the director for Sweet Grown Alabama. She said the position is a dream job that had not yet been created when she finished college. The past busy months, Watson has talked to farmers, to grocers, restaurateurs and other businesses that buy their goods and to the growing number of farmers markets. The SweetGrownAlabama. org website gives information about membership categories. Wat20 MARCH 2020
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