Date: July 7, 2016
Contact: Tricia Phelps, tricia@localdifference.org (847) 809-7643
New Guide to Local Food for Southeast Michigan
Ann Arbor – Taste the Local Difference®, Michigan’s local-food branding and marketing program, will publish its TLD Guide to Local Food in Southeast Michigan starting Thursday July 14th, 2016. The new magazine-format guide will cover nine counties across the region.
Taste the Local Difference® (TLD) has become an iconic brand, helping to market and sell local food in Michigan for more than a decade. Its mission is to “help food businesses and the communities they serve benefit from the economic value of local food while making fresh, healthy, local food available to all.” TLD first appeared in 2004 as a small booklet listing farms and restaurants in five counties around Grand Traverse Bay. Since then it has grown to include a robust set of online, mobile, and print resources for local food businesses across the state. Its annual Guide to Local Food magazine will now have a special printing for Southeast Michigan.
In 2016, TLD began offering its services to the local food community in Washtenaw County through an ACT 88 economic development grant. TLD has since expanded those services to eight other counties including Oakland, Macomb, Wayne, Monroe, Ingham, Livingston, Jackson and Lenawee counties. The new TLD Guide to Local Food in Southeast Michigan will include maps and listings of farms, farmers markets, and food businesses, making it easy for consumers to find locally grown and produced food.
In addition to the nine counties represented in the southeast Michigan guide, TLD also covers all 15 counties in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, 11 counties in northeast Michigan and 10 counties in northwest Michigan, totaling 45 counties across the state in two publications with a circulation of 80,000 copies.
Inside the thirty-six page guide, consumers will find maps and listings of hundreds of farms and local food businesses. There are also directories of farmers markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms, locally made beverage businesses, and stories about the people and organizations creating a thriving local food movement in southeast Michigan.
Beyond the guide, TLD offers a basic set of marketing resources to farms, farmers, and farmers markets at no cost. Additional marketing support can be added using an inexpensive fee-based system. Value-added food producers, food hubs, restaurants, retail stores, markets, wholesale distributors, schools, hospitals, and other large businesses can also benefit from TLD’s local food marketing strategies. All of this is available at a very reasonable cost, scaled to meet the needs of each business.
The TLD Guide to Local Food in Southeast Michigan will be available to the public free of charge starting on July 14th, 2016. Magazines may be found at participating farm stands, farmers markets, grocery stores and visitor centers.
For more, information, please contact Tricia Phelps at (847) 809-7643, tricia@localdifference.org, or visit http://localdifference.org.
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For a print-ready version of this media release click here.
Taste the Local Difference® is a social enterprise of the Traverse City-based Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities. For more than 20 years, Groundwork has focused on three areas to create stronger, more vibrant, and resilient communities: transportation, clean energy, and food and farming. Groundwork’s Taste the Local Difference® program is a recognized leader in developing new models for local food systems in Michigan and elsewhere.
One of the ways TLD promotes local food in the community is with their annual print publication, The Guide to Local Food- published in partnership with MyNorth/Traverse Magazine. This guide is a free resource for the community and is distributed in grocery stores, community libraries, visitors bureaus and hotels. 
Media Release
The Local Food Companion 