Some of the perks included in an NRM prize pack
Oct 05, 2021
ARLINGTON, VA -- Last week, USA Rice wrapped up a busy month of celebrating National Rice Month (NRM) in honor of our homegrown grain. Throughout September, USA Rice hosted dedicated social campaigns, contests and giveaways, special edition newsletters, and recipe debuts as part of the organization’s promotional programming.
“This year, USA Rice utilized a combination of outreach strategies to make sure the word got out on National Rice Month, clueing in the public about the annual celebration of our favorite month and grain,” said Michael Klein, vice president of communications and domestic promotion. “It’s exciting to see more consumer engagement year after year during NRM as interest continues to grow about where our food comes from.”
The USA Rice team of Registered Dietitian (RD) influencers created and photographed six new rice recipes distributed via their individual blogs. Chef Hari Cameron created a U.S.-grown rice recipe developed especially for NRM: Riso al Salto, a saffron rice pancake with cherry tomato and gooseberry, made with sprouted brown medium grain rice.
Daily social media posts across all platforms inspired audiences to #thinkrice every day of NRM. The scheduled posts yielded strong results with more than 96,000 impressions, 3,600 consumer engagements, and 356 new followers for the month.
NRM-themed editions of USA Rice consumer and school foodservice newsletters shared ways to celebrate and engage with USA Rice, including recipe inspiration, giveaways, and additional rice resources relevant to the respective consumer and school nutrition audiences.
USA Rice also celebrated domestic rice as part of Whole Grains Month, and partnered with the Whole Grain Council to co-sponsor “The Grainies,” awards that recognize consumers who “choose whole grains.” The Grainies received more than 295 participant entries and 10 winners were chosen to receive a sampler of domestic whole grain varieties.
In addition, the National Rice Month Scholarship Video Contest was launched on September 1. The annual contest, sponsored by American Commodity Company, hands out at least $10,000 in college scholarships. Entries will be accepted until October 31 and winners will be announced at the USA Rice Outlook Conference in December.
“All of this comes against the backdrop of our members and state organizations donating tens of thousands of pounds of rice to area food banks throughout the month,” continued Klein. “And still to come are the results of our NRM retail partnership promotions with ShopRite and the successful NRM recipe contest with FeedFeed. Once the data from those additional promotions are compiled, we’ll be sure to share the totals.”