HVADC Program: Hudson Valley Bounty

Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corporation (HVADC) recently launched a new and improved Hudson Valley Bounty website, giving the comprehensive local farm and food portal a fresh new look. For over a decade, Hudson Valley Bounty has been providing marketing exposure for food producers throughout Orange, Sullivan, Ulster, Dutchess, Columbia, Albany, Rensselaer and Washington counties. Over 300 farms and food enterprises throughout the Hudson Valley are featured, with descriptions, product lists, photos, maps and wholesale and contact information included for each.

Launched in 2010, Hudsonvalleybounty.com has become a premiere resource for searching for farms and agricultural businesses in the Hudson Valley. It was initially designed to promote and support networking and connections between local agricultural producers and culinary businesses, while educating the community about the preservation of local farms and the use of local and regional sustainable food products.

The high-traffic website is most often used as a resource by local consumers, tourists, chefs, farmers, wholesalers, and institutional buyers. Free promotional business listings are available to farms, wineries/vineyards, distilleries, breweries, cideries, specialty producers, farmers markets, food and beverage trails, restaurants, caterers, event venues, retail and grocery stores, and distributors/wholesalers.

Given the data-intensive nature of the website, over the years technology updates became necessary to improve the search functions. The re-launch was also an opportunity for HVADC to debut a new modern logo for the Hudson Valley Bounty. For over a year HVADC Program Associate Linnette Diaz, and other staff members worked with software developer Tamarack Media Cooperative to rebuild the site from the ground up and upgrade every aspect of the user experience. Dandelion Design Inc. created the new logo which captures the fork elements of both farm production and dining.

“The new and improved Hudson Valley Bounty has been a labor of love for HVADC for a long time now and we are so excited to share it with the agribusiness community and the Hudson Valley consumers who patronize our local businesses,” said HVADC Executive Director Todd Erling. “This free resource is crucial to our mission and is an avenue for us to support producers and connect with them in order for us to help them with other services, such as Business Technical Assistance,” he added.

The new Hudson Valley Bounty now has vastly improved search functionality and the pages for each business listed in the database are filled with more helpful information about product availability, production methods, distribution models, open hours, social media profiles and contact information. The site is searchable by county, with interactive maps pin-pointing each farm or food business, by business category, by product type, by production method, and by distribution markets. Additional educational resources are available as well, including a seasonality chart, glossary of agricultural terms and information about farm and food certifications.

“Many of our client businesses have multiple functions like a farm, a winery and a market store, etc. Now that can all be on one published page and broken down into searchable elements,” Diaz continued. “Ease of use and intuitive navigation was really important to us. The search function is the heart of the site and the ability to search in an hyper-specific ways will allow for new connections to be made so much more intuitively.”

 These improved pages, and the ease of finding farms and producers in a specific area, will allow for fast and easy business connections. Restaurants in search of wholesale distributers of a specific product, for example, are now just a few clicks away. Likewise, a visitor to the area looking for the closest farm brewery near their vacation rental can multiple options in a flash.

“I have big plans for the Hudson Valley Bounty program,” said Diaz, “The launch of the new site is exciting but it’s only the beginning. Improved functionality will allow us to connect our community to its farm culture like never before.”

Diaz said the new formatting of the pages and site at large will make social media and marketing campaigns for Hudson Valley Bounty initiatives easier to produce and more impactful.

“While the Bounty site has always received high traffic numbers, with the re-launch we will be planning a visible promotional campaign for 2024, and now is a great time for food producers to sign up for the free business profiles,” she said.

For farms and food businesses, adding a new business to the registry is fast and easy. Visit hudsonvallybounty.com and visit the “Add Your Business” tab. Businesses who list on the Hudson Valley Bounty site also have the opportunity to be featured on Hudson Valley Bounty consumer-facing social media and email newsletters, as well as access to Hudson Valley Bounty’s curated newsletters for food producers containing information on grant and financing opportunities, training workshops, events and opportunities to promote their business or list job openings.