The B.C. government’s $6 million Buy Local program on August 5 announced the latest small agricultural business to receive money to help it promote its products.
Bremner Foods will get $50,000 to help it with advertising, new branding and an online marketing campaign coordinated by Vancouver’s Fluid Creative.
In order to get that cash, owner Terry Bremner had to agree to pony up a matching $50,000.
“Its great that the government is putting money in to promote local comp because we need it,” he told Business in Vancouver after a morning ceremony. “It’s critical for small local companies to be able to compete against the big American companies and people often aren’t even aware that we’re local.”
The Buy Local program launched in 2012 and dozens of B.C. companies have received funding, although that funding is usually less than $20,000 each.
Some past winners of funding have included farmers such as Pitt Meadows’ Hopcott Farms ($16,883), cheese makers such as Vancouver Island’s Paradise Island Foods ($47,337) and wineries such as Abbotsford’s Singletree Winery ($18,500).
In each case, the winner had to match the Buy Local money and spend the cash on marketing and not on a new tractor or other expenses.
Bremner applied for the grant in the spring and then started working with Fluid Creative a couple months ago.
Applications to the Buy Local program are accepted on an ongoing basis with the next cutoff dates for judging being August 31, November 2 and January 2, 2016.
Bremner Foods started in the 1980s with a blueberry field in East Delta and now has grown to 80 acres.
The lower Canadian dollar has helped somewhat but there are still a lot of costs in U.S. dollars, Bremner told BIV.
“A lot of our fruit comes from overseas: mangoes, raspberries, strawberries and blackberries,” he said. “So, it’s tough. We have a full line of frozen fruit in addition to our fresh juices. If we just did blueberries, the stores aren’t going to carry our line. They’ll say blueberries are nice but our customers want a variety of choices.”
