USA Rice Pitches U.S.-Grown to Major Foodservice Supplier UniPro

ARLINGTON, VA -- USA Rice recently wrapped up a distributor marketing campaign with UniPro, the largest foodservice distribution cooperative, as part of the organization’s foodservice supplier outreach program.  The year-long campaign was developed to educate UniPro’s membership of 400 distributors and 560 branches on rice and promote the importance of sourcing and carrying U.S.-grown rice.

Starting in January, USA Rice sent the first of three sponsored emails to UniPro’s list of 2,225 independent distributors providing foundational information on U.S.-grown rice.  The distributor marketing emails covered three distinct themes with messaging revolving around the continuous accessibility of domestic rice in stark contrast to items impacted by supply chain issues, a thorough introduction to the domestic rice industry that highlighted the demand for rice and promoted the U.S.-grown difference, and, finally, a celebration of National Rice Month and Hispanic Heritage Month that spotlighted the role of rice in Hispanic cuisines.

“Launching the distributor engagement program with UniPro was a great first step for USA Rice to connect and work with foodservice distributors and suppliers,” said Robbie Trahan, chair of the USA Rice Domestic Promotion Committee.  “Through this marketing program, we were able to streamline communications to UniPro’s wide-ranging membership educating them on the rice category and highlighting the versatility and demand for U.S.-grown rice.”

Following the final outreach to distributors in September, the three sponsored promotional emails saw an average open rate of 18 percent and prompted many interactions with recipients.

“Anytime the industry is able to directly communicate the reasons for carrying domestic rice, varieties available, and benefits of U.S.-grown rice to a coalition of independent distributors with a collective sales volume of over $119 billion, it’s a strong win for the domestic rice industry, said Trahan.”

Following the completion of the UniPro program, USA Rice partnered with Performance Foodservice Group to conduct a similar distributor marketing campaign for the 2022-2023 year to continue the industry’s outreach to foodservice suppliers and distributors.