Testimony of Charles Fleming
Marketing Coordinator
North Dakota Department of Agriculture
Senate Bill 2354
Senate Appropriations Committee
Harvest Room
February 4, 2003

Chairman Holmberg and members of the Senate Appropriations Committee. My name is Chuck Fleming and I am the Marketing Coordinator for the North Dakota Department of Agriculture. I am here today to testify neither for nor against Senate Bill 2354, but rather to provide you with background information that may be helpful in your deliberations.

In March of last year, with the help and cooperation of the Department of Public Instruction, we initiated the first annual Pride of Dakota School Lunch Day in North Dakota. The purpose of the event was to encourage North Dakota school lunch administrators to purchase North Dakota produced and/or processed food products for the menu for that day. While this special day was one of many activities to promote March as Pride of Dakota Month in the state, we also encouraged food companies who are not members of Pride of Dakota to participate as well.

It was a great success with over 250 schools totaling 59,000 plus kids participating. The Department of Public Instruction provided sample menus and we worked with North Dakota companies and the five major food distributors to North Dakota schools.

We wanted to use this day to remind every one of the emerging food industry in our state. The North Dakota Food Processors Association endorsed the activity and encouraged their members to participate.

But one of the most important aspects of the event was to instill to the food administrators in the various schools that they can play a very important role in the economic activity of our state. The purchasing power they have has a tremendous impact on the economy of the state. And the more they buy from North Dakotans, the better off we are.

Following last year's School Lunch Day, the Department of Agriculture had a booth at the annual ND School Lunch Administrators Trade Show held in Minot in August. Again we tried to encourage everyone to purchase North Dakota products. We prepared a brochure of Pride of Dakota companies that are currently selling to school or who want to get into the school lunch market. Attached to my testimony is that brochure.

The second annual school lunch day will be held on March 25th and as of this date we have 77,237 kids signed up to eat North Dakota products on that day. We have a lot of unique activities planned that will help tell the story of the food industry of our state. We hope this event will continue to encourage North Dakota School Lunch Administrators to purchase North Dakota products.

The School lunch program market is a very competitive and price sensitive market. It is dominated by a handful of distributors. Many of our Pride of Dakota companies fit the gourmet food market better. But there are some who can really service this market. Of course there are a lot of other North Dakota companies who are not members of Pride of Dakota that could do so as well.

Thank you.