LOCAL SOURCING: Ukrop's Super Markets

JEFF WELLS

Recent studies have shown that now's a great time for stores to go local. And with its new marketing push and wide array of area produce, Ukrop's Super Markets is taking advantage of that opportunity like nobody else.

Sourcing from farmers throughout its home state of Virginia is something Ukrop's has done for years, but not until last year did it call much attention to this. That's when the retailer started putting up signs in the produce department featuring local farmers and what they grew. Ukrop's also started bringing growers into their stores more often, and came up with a catchy tagline to tie everything together: Take the Local Route.

“We've been doing local for a lot of years, but we really haven't shouted, ‘Hey, come to Ukrop's, and here are all the different local products we carry,’” said Al Oliver, director of produce.

An effort to expand the retailer's local sourcing activities accompanied the new marketing focus. Oliver held outreach meetings with farmers, searching for new growers and alternatives to some of the conventionally sourced products he carried. Among his more interesting finds was an organic tomato grower on the state's Eastern Shore and a nearby butterbean farm.

“We really try to see what products our consumers want that we're currently not offering local,” said Oliver.

Expanded selection hasn't dulled the luster of the chain's perennial local produce star: Hanover tomatoes. Grown in a sandy-soiled region just outside the company's hometown of Richmond, they're a uniquely sweet, thin-skinned variety that become instant bestsellers when they hit stores.