Spartan Highlights Michigan's Best

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Spartan Stores here last week launched “Michigan's Best,” a campaign to showcase more than 2,400 fresh food and grocery items grown and produced in Michigan at its D&W Fresh Market, Family Fare, Felpausch, Glen's, Glen's Fresh Market and VG's stores.

“There has been quite a lot of buzz about buying local and buying Michigan,” Alan Hart-line, vice president of merchandising, told The Grand Rapids Press. “We are always trying to position our products to be relevant to customers.”

Items highlighted in last week's D&W flier included Reny Picot Brie cheese, Litehouse refrigerated salad dressings, Bob Evans sausage products, Spartan brand hams and dairy products, and locally grown fresh-cut flowers. But the promotion extends throughout the grocery aisles as well, with the company reminding customers that Kellogg Co., for example, is based in Battle Creek and operates several production facilities in Michigan.

Michigan consumers have been encouraged to buy local products by “Buy Michigan Now,” a campaign launched in 2007 by Lisa Diggs, president of The Catalyst Co., a Michigan-based consulting agency. The campaign last November published a downloadable, online grocery guide which emphasizes that if the state's shoppers spent $10 of their weekly food budget on Michigan-made products, $37 million per week would be retained by the local economy.

In conjunction with the group, Gov. Jennifer Granholm recently declared July 27-Aug. 2 “Buy Michigan Week.”