Patterson Farm Wins North American Marketing Award

Release date: 3/9/2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Linda Bailey
                    704.314.4716


SALISBURY -- Patterson Farm Market & Tours, Inc. of Mt. Ulla, in western Rowan County, recently won a top award in the 2012 North American Farmers’ Direct Marketing Association’s “Celebrate Excellence” competition.

Patterson Farm Market & Tours won first place in the Best Brochure or Specialty Literature category, one of 10 contests that NAFDMA sponsored this year. Patterson also won an honorable mention for its Learn & Grow Discovery Farm in the New Event category. The awards were presented at the annual convention in Williamsburg, VA. NAFDMA is the leading farm direct marketing and agritourism association in the world with more than 500 members attending the convention, representing the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The winning brochure, designed by Mark Calcagni of Miller Davis Agency of Salisbury, features educational school tours at Patterson Farm with a design emphasizing fun and consistent in look with the website, e-mail presentations, direct mail cards, and other marketing materials created by Miller Davis.

The Learn & Grow Discovery Farm Tour features Flicker the Firefly, who leads children through 15 interactive learning stations, including the dairy barn, bee barn, chicken coop, apple orchard, potato, tomato and pumpkin harvest areas, and others. Children learn where their food comes from as they “work” the farm at the learning stations. Through fun simulations, they “milk” a cow, “harvest” honey and produce and “gather” eggs. They return their “produce” to bins at the market to earn Patterson Farm Bucks to spend on fruit or ice cream.

Miller Davis created signs, a map, the Flicker character, Patterson Farm “bucks,” video, brochures, bookmarks, and direct mail to promote Discovery Farm. The design team was led by Sam Morgan. In the first year of operation of Discovery Farm, tour revenue increased more than 26%.

Each year, Patterson Farm Market & Tours, located on Caldwell Road in Mt. Ulla, hosts some 25,000 students and teachers at tours such as North Carolina Farm History, Dirt-on-Dirt, Strawberry Tours, Pumpkin Tours, Geocaching, and Spring Pizza tours. The Farm History Tour is designed to meet curriculum requirements of the fourth grade N.C. Standard Course of Study. In 2011, Patterson Farm Market & Tours, Inc. was one of the top 25 field trip destinations in the state.

Patterson Farm Market & Tours has been providing educational school tours for 17 years. Patterson Farm and its entities are owned and operated by Randall and Nora Patterson and Doug and Michelle Patterson.

NAFDMA’s Celebrate Excellence Program is based on three association objectives: to stimulate learning, celebrate excellence and advance best practices.
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