South Carolina State Report

SC Tomato Market
South Carolina’s tomato season was just about to spring into action when, unfortunately, salmonella from tomatoes raised its ugly head. Fortunately, SC was on the FDA cleared list. We feared that the scare might affect our tomato market which had just begun, so we stepped-up the promotion of our locally grown tomatoes through our new Certified SC Grown program. Consumers thought that ALL tomatoes were tainted, but we took this opportunity to showcase our locally grown tomatoes.

www.agriculture.sc.gov
The SC Department of Agriculture launched a new Web site on May 1st. Check out www.agriculture.sc.gov. We have added RSS feeds, audio Market News reports, and a host of interactive components that we hope make us more accessible to our constituents. We are also in the process of revamping our www.certifiedscgrown.com Web site as well.

Certified SC
The South Carolina Department of Agriculture launched the Certified SC Grown program in May of 2007. The program is a public-private partnership among producers, processors, wholesalers, retailers and the SCDA to brand and promote South Carolina products. Our goal is for consumers to be able to easily identify, find and buy South Carolina products by building brand awareness.
Ninety percent of shoppers surveyed in SC indicated that they would purchase SC grown produce if it was competitively priced and offered good quality. The new branding campaign aims to reinforce the image of quality – that South Carolina grown products are fresher, tastier, sweeter and juicier. The campaign creates an emotional tie, while informing the public, stimulating interest in locally grown products and creating a fundamental shift in the public’s lifestyle buying decisions.

The program is not about local vs. organic or South Carolina vs. South Dakota. It’s about maintaining a stable economy, especially in rural areas of the state. It’s about state pride and loyalty – about turning South Carolinians from consumers into advocates. It’s about customers who ask for and prefer Certified SC Grown products – driving the demand for the quality, diversity and availability of homegrown products and contributing to rural economic development for the state. Our slogan is Nothing’s fresher. Nothing’s finer. Ask for South Carolina. (Later it will change to Buy South Carolina.)

Fresh on the Menu
This year we added the Fresh on the Menu, the restaurant phase of the Certified SC program. The South Carolina Department of Agriculture hosted the Fresh on the Menu cooking competition at the Charleston Food and Wine Festival on March 1st to launch the new program. The fast-paced and highly-spirited competition showcased the talents of twelve of Charleston’s local chefs and cooks. We now have more than 50 Lowcountry (coastal area) restaurants participating in the Fresh on the Menu program.
Our goal for the Fresh on the Menu program is to get chefs and restaurants across the state to cook and serve at least 25 percent of their menu with South Carolina products and produce when in season. The program has been very appealing, and we think that it will spread throughout the state.

Our partners in this endeavor see the value in cooking and serving locally grown, and so do many of the restaurant patrons who know to look for the Fresh on the Menu logo where they dine. Our slogan is Locally Grown... It’s to dine for.