• by Steve Ellwanger , January 7, 2020

Pasture-raised egg brand Vital Farms is responding to the rising consumer desire for food sourcing transparency with a program that lets people see which farm their eggs come from.

The company this week launched a national advertising campaign titled “Traceability” featuring Vital Farms farmer Stuart Dill. In long- and short-form videos, Dill explains how shoppers can enter the farm name printed on a Vital Farms egg carton into vitalfarms.com/farm and see a 360-degree video view of the family farm where the eggs were laid.

“Some companies like to paint a beautiful picture of what they’re doing, and sometimes they even add it to their package,” Dill says. “But as soon as you try to get a little peek behind the curtain, they hide quicker than a hen in a hailstorm.”

Pecking at competitors, Dill adds, “With Vital Farms traceability, you can rest easy and breezy, knowing your food’s coming from the pasture and not some dark and dingy warehouse like most other eggs.”

Asked to explain the genesis of the campaign, Vital Farms brand manager Heather Fitzpatrick tells Marketing Daily, “We discovered that the majority of well-meaning egg-lovers were actually being duped by an oversaturation of empty claims and false idyllic pictures. We knew that we had to enlighten them to the fact that sometimes, what was on the package didn't always match up to reality, and encourage them that there is a bullsh--t-free alternative that they can trust.”

The target audience for the campaign is “conscious consumers who are interested in ethical food brands. Our customers are savvy, they strive to do the right thing in regards to animal welfare and want to give their families the best option out there.”

The “Traceability” videos launched yesterday. They will run on Amazon Fire TV and on digital, social and rich-media mobile platforms.

Austin-based Preacher is the agency of record for Vital Farms.

Privately held Vital Farms was founded in 2007 by a husband-and-wife team with 20 chickens and a pasture in Austin, Texas.  It claims to be the leading U.S. brand of pasture-raised eggs and butter by retail dollar sales, with distribution in approximately 13,000 stores. It also sells hard-boiled eggs, ghee (a form of highly clarified butter) and liquid whole eggs.

Other notable examples of food traceability initiatives include that of Dutch retailer Plus, which last September implemented blockchain-technology mapping for bananas. Each piece of the fruit sold by Plus carries a sticker with a QR code that traces the journey from plantations in the Urabá region in Colombia to supermarket shelves.