Growing Green, Selling Green: 

 A Conference Exploring Green 

 Marketing Trends in the Food Industry 



Craig HoUingsworth and William Coli 



University of Massachusetts Cooperative Extension System 



Vicki Van Zee 



Connecticut River Valley Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture 



"Green marketing," the use of environmental phi- 

 losophy and practice as a martceting tool, is gaining 

 greater acceptance throughout the world. However, the 

 use of integrated pest management (IPM) in a market- 

 ing strategy is a controversial issue within the North- 

 east apple industry. A number of surveys have been 

 conducted in the Northeast to investigate the attitudes 

 toward IPM marketing among consumers, growers, and 

 the food industry (Grant et al., 1990; HoUingsworth et 

 al., 1992; HoUingsworth etal., 1993). To explore fur- 

 ther the issues involved in this topic, the University of 

 Massachusetts Cooperative Extension System and the 

 Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture co- 

 sponsored a conference called "Growing Green, Sell- 

 ing Green," to bring together leaders of the New En- 

 gland food industry, including farmers, chefs, retailers, 

 wholesalers, and processors with consumer advocates, 

 educators, and government policy makers to discuss 

 opportunities and barriers for marketing produce grown 

 using IPM. The conference was held at Bentley Col- 

 lege in Waltham, Massachusetts on November 7, 1994 

 and included 54 participants from 12 states. 



During the morning session invited speakers pre- 

 sented a number of IPM and marketing issues: 



Jonathan Healy (Massachusetts Commissioner of 

 Food & Agriculture) challenged the conference by ask- 

 ing what kind of labelling consumers are willing to pay 

 extra for and how we can communicate the concepts of 

 IPM effectively to the consumer. 



Jay Hellman (President of John E. Cain Company, 

 Ayer, MA) presented an example of a challenge from 

 the processing industry: selecting pepper varieties for 

 production and processing in Massachusetts. 



William Coli (Massachusetts IPM Coordinator) 

 provided an explanation of the components and prac- 

 tices used in IPM, noting that Massachusetts farmers 

 using IPM have reduced their pesticide use by 25% to 

 70%. 



George Dunaif (Campbell Soup Company, 

 Camden, NJ) described how Campbell's uses IPM its 

 system approach (see Bolkan and Reinert, 1994). The 

 company requires the use of IPM by participating grow- 

 ers, but also provides contract growers with significant 

 support, including grower education, pest and weather 

 monitoring, and evaluation of farm practices, coupled 

 with state-of-the-art residue removal processes and pes- 

 ticide residue evaluation at key stages of production 

 and processing. 



James Brienling (Gerber Products Company, Fre- 

 mont, MI) showed how Gerber uses IPM and a system 

 approach in pursuit of eliminating pesticide residues in 

 its products. The program is based on its Hazard Analy- 

 sis at Critical Control Points system. Gerber Products 

 provides IPM information to consumers only by request. 



Christine Briihn (Center for Consumer Research, 

 University of Califomia, Davis, CA) presented research 

 results indicating specific consumer concerns with food 

 safety and how consumer confidence in the safety of 

 the food supply can be influenced positively by educa- 

 tional material, in this case, a two-minute video describ- 

 ing IPM practices (Bruhn et al.,1992). 



Nathan Reed (Stemilt Growers, Inc., Wenatchee, 

 WA) described two efforts in marketing IPM-grown 

 fmit: the Integrated Fruit Production (IFP) program used 

 in European Union countries and Stemilt's Growers for 

 Responsible Choice (GRC). In 1991, 1 74,000 acres of 



Fru/t Notes, Spring, 1995 



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