Gold Plate Awards
The FMI Foundation created the Gold Plate Award in 2013 to highlight the outstanding programs implemented by the retail food industry to encourage family meals. Examples include healthy family meals, quick and easy family meals and recipes, cooking with kids, themed dinners, breakfast with the family, MyPlate meals, and much more. The award recognizes outstanding programs that food retailers and suppliers have implemented, to encourage families to share more meals, together at home, more often.
Watch the Full 2022 Gold Plate Awards Celebration!
The first livestreamed broadcast of the Gold Plate Awards Celebration took place on Dec. 14, 2022, hosted by David Fikes, executive director, FMI Foundation, and Kelli Windsor, director of digital communications, FMI. Watch the full celebration by clicking the button below.
2022 Gold Plate Awards nominations are closed.
2022 Gold Plate Awards Winners
Retail Category: 1- 49 stores
"Be A Family Meal Champ" campaign focused on saturating their entire market with the importance of family meals. Their Family Meals Champ challenge prompted customers to upload photos of their family meal masterpieces for a chance to win a $100 store gift card. Martin's stressed the importance of family meals by holding in-person cooking classes for parents and their children. Their dietitian discussed the benefits and challenges of family meals during three media segments, as well as reaching over 73,000 listeners on a morning talk show. Martins reached over 1,100 subscribers with their Eat Smart Be Well e-Newsletter, focusing on the importance of family meals and recipe inspirations and delivered their weekly ad email to almost 500,000 subscribers. Their digital marketing garnered more than 750,000 impressions on content and over a million weekly ad views.
Retail Category: 50 - 199 stores
Spartan Nash focused on fostering family values with its “Our Family, Building Strong Families” campaign, garnering over 9.5 million measurable impressions through its extensive omnichannel marketing approach and different partnerships. Spartan Nash created two different cookbooks, featuring family-friendly, culturally-inclusive recipes, that produced over 14,000 impressions. They took National Family Meals Month™ one step further by creating their own independent 3-month movement, expanding their reach and providing 2,000 independent retail stores with a free digital marketing package. Their partnership with social media influencer, three-time paralympic athlete and mom of two, Melissa Stockwell, gained them a reach of 20,000 followers with 4.5 million impressions through family meal hacks and recipe posts. Spartan Nash utilized billboards, dietitian approved dump bins, in-store signage, email blasts, and e-commerce websites to amass over 5.4 million impressions during the month.
Retail Category: 200+ stores
Hy-Vee, Inc. celebrated National Family Meals Month™ with special events that promoted the foods of various cultures and mealtime traditions to coincide with National Hispanic Heritage Month. Through live cooking demonstrations, two downloadable cooking guides, KidsFit programs, and an omnichannel marketing approach, Hy-Vee excelled in bringing awareness to the importance of family meals. Their Begin 4 Families four-week program provided 210 families with one-on-one sessions with a Hy-Vee dietitian, teaching them positive ways to create a healthy and balanced lifestyle for their family. Furthermore, Hy-Vee strengthened its goal of bringing families together by supplying 2,000 meals over two separate events for families within their communities. Their campaign also included a media tour with Hy-Vee's chief medical officer Dr. Flick, including 26 interviews reaching over 30.1 million viewers, covering various topics including the importance of family meals on both mental and physical health.
Category: Supplier
Pure Flavor’s “Eat Well Together to Be Well Together” campaign was strategically designed to bring awareness to the importance of family meals, both physically and mentally, by encouraging meal prep, family interaction, and the consumption of fruits and vegetables. Each week Pure Flavor promoted new recipes, tips, and family meal facts, along with engaging three different targeted audiences in surveys, giveaways, and partnership interaction. They partnered with the Healthy Family Project, reaching over 20,000 e-newsletter subscribers and securing 94,000 impressions and 11,000 engagements between their combined social media accounts. Pure Flavor’s celebration of National Family Meals Month™ gained more than 436,000 impressions on social media and over 15,500 surveys completed, contributing further impact to improving family mealtime for their customers.
Honorable Mentions
Skogen’s Festival Foods celebrated National Family Meals Month™ by raising awareness and collecting over $30,000 for local food pantries through their “Food for Neighbors” program, a way to help more families gather around the table. A dedicated landing page with videos, virtual cooking classes, and more gained over 15,900 views, increasing 173% over last year. Mealtime Mentor Dietitians collaborated with Instagram influencers to discuss the importance and challenges behind family meals, reaching over 2,500 viewers in their live video. Over the four weeks, Festival Foods had 2 million in digital advertising impressions.
Rouses Markets’ “Family Meals Month: We Are Family!” campaign focused on providing families with affordable meals through their free, downloadable “We Are Family!” cookbook, featuring 12, family-friendly recipes in partnership with Kellogg’s. Rouse’s registered dietitian held a Facebook live cooking demo with over 1,000 views, three media segments with over 363,000 potential viewers, and an in-store event, engaging with over 300 customers about their favorite family meal.
Weis Markets’ “Celebrate Family Meals Month/Fight Huger at Weis Markets” campaign was designed to make family meals approachable and fun for everyone. Weis dietitians held five media segments with over 28,000 views and four family-friendly recipe videos featuring “30 Minutes or Less Meals” and “5 Ingredients or Less” which achieved over 15,000 views on Facebook. Its “Fight Hunger Campaign” brought in $298,000 in donations, raising money so more families can eat just one more meal together each week.
Brookshire Grocery Company’s “Family Meals Month: Everyone Wins!” campaign allowed customers the chance to earn double the points on featured National Family Meals Month™ food items. Partnering with multiple vendors, Brookshire took an omnichannel approach to market their program and gain awareness of the benefits of eating a meal together as a family. Brookshire Grocery Company had over 150,000 social media impressions, and their customers earned 1.6 million YourPoints in September.
ButcherBox brought awareness to the mental and physical benefits of family meals through their digital influencer campaign “ButcherBox Table Talks”. Through discussions about the benefits and challenges of family meals with experts, moms, and influencers, ButcherBox inspired and empowered families to join together at the table once again. ButcherBox reached over 352,000 people through combined followership, furthering their awareness.
Merchants Distributors, LLC’s “Family Meals Made Easy” campaign inspired shoppers to build relationships and improve their nutrition, all while having more family meals together. The program highlighted easy meal solutions, utilizing three different meal themes to help families feel inspired at mealtime. Their partnerships with over 40 brands paired with 400 independent retail stores promoting National Family Meals Month™, along with a thorough digital marketing campaign, ultimately led Merchants to achieving over 12.7 million impressions.
Blue Ribbon Recipients
Organizations that effectively connected family meals to mental health benefits in their family meals programs.
In addition to ButcherBox; Hy-Vee, Inc.; Martin's Super Markets, Inc.; Pure Flavor®; Rouses Markets and SpartanNash Company, these three organizations developed impactful programs that highlighted the mental health benefits of family meals.
Coborn’s “Perfect DUOS: Protein & Produce to Power Your Plate” campaign had over 900,000 impressions through its omnichannel marketing approach. Coborn’s focused on why family meals are important and how to keep them budget-friendly yet nutritious, providing their customers with 12 Perfect DUO recipes.
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KVAT Foods, Inc. celebrated National Family Meals Month™ with their “Stay Strong with Family Meals: Meals Made for Sharing” campaign, encouraging families to share one more meal a week together. Registered dietitians led the way with TV segments and videos promoting the benefits of family meals through tips on overcoming challenges, with quick, nutritious, and budget-friendly meal solutions. KVAT Foods, Inc. reached over 3.1 million people during their monthlong campaign with over 2.2 million impressions across their social media channels.
Tops Markets celebrated National Family Meal Month™ with its “At Your Table” campaign by supporting customers and associates with the food and tools they needed to enjoy one more meal together. Tops made it easy for families with their dedicated landing page, filled with recipe inspirations, National Family Meal Month™ facts and resources, and quick access to an e-commerce site. Collaborations with a local business owner/TV personality and a non-profit organization expanded Tops Markets’ reach and awareness throughout their communities. Tops reached over 70,000 people through social media, sent over 500,000 emails, and had over 2 million website views in September.
Gold Plate Awards Criteria
The Goal Plate Awards recognize retailer and supplier programs that creatively participated in National Family Meals MonthTM in September.
The FMI Foundation will be gathering information about National Family Meals Month participation by food retailers and suppliers throughout the food industry during the month of September. The Gold Plate Award winners will be decided based on each company’s participation.
The following criteria will be used in the selection of Gold Plate Award winning programs:
- Reach of program – breadth, depth and number of people that the program reaches
- Originality/Creativity
- Promotion of National Family Meals Month
- Corporate participation – level of company/store-wide involvement
- Ability to scale and replicate the program
Winning companies will be selected in four categories:
- Category A: Small retailers (Companies with 1-49 stores)
- Category B: Medium retailers (Companies with 50-199 stores)
- Category C: Large retailers (Companies with 200+ stores)
- Category D: Suppliers
- Category E: Community Collaborators (Formerly “Allies”)
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