For twelve years, Edible San Diego has been a leading voice on local food and drink in San Diego County. Over the last four years we diversified the company so that our stories are far more accessible online as well as in our quarterly print magazine. We focus on our local food system in all its social and environmental complexity as well as the everyday pleasures of seasonal produce, cooking, gardening, eating out, and the remarkable local people who make it all happen. We had big plans for 2020 that included events bringing all of this together and had to cancel our first one in mid-March. When the quarantine started, we immediately wanted to help San Diego County businesses share quickly-changing information with their customers, so we created a free resource directory, which many thousands of people have been referencing since mid-March.

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To further serve our community, we evolved this list into something more impactful. In Your Neighborhood is a new digital platform that enables our region’s diverse businesses to present themselves to customers in sections organized geographically and by business type. We kept access to this listing free to continue assisting local businesses dealing with the pandemic and the reopening, although we offer some marketing options as well. If you have a favorite local company that isn’t already on this list, please tell them about this opportunity, so they can fill out the easy form and join for free. (Thank you.)

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At the same time, just like every business, Edible San Diego has faced a revenue challenge when so many businesses closed. Borrowing the idea from how we can subscribe for music, movies or CSA farm boxes nowadays, we created a new membership program offering new, convenient, valuable packages of benefits for residents and businesses alike. We launched our memberships with what we dubbed the TOGETHER Campaign in April.

For individuals, membership with Edible San Diego gives you a new digital publication, the Edible San Diego Weekly, with handy and inspiring lifestyle content in plus hundreds of dollars of value in special offers from our business members that make living local more budget-friendly. We also created an option for folks who want to subscribe to print and digital content in an annual package. Over time, we will add other member benefits.

As everyone has continued to innovate and adapt since March, we saw room for improvement and refined the membership program, giving businesses three choices for access to Edible San Diego's loyal audience. We want to accommodate partners that run the gamut of size and situation. We are currently preparing other marketing opportunities to deliver dramatically more reach for our clients, so stay tuned.

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COVID-19 made it necessary for us to do a deep re-evaluation of how our company can serve our readers and advertisers better than before. Both of these projects, the In Your Neighborhood platform and the membership program are part of how Edible San Diego is adapting and reorganizing. Why? To develop and more broadly share stories that invite more people into a community and conversation about local food from a food system perspective, wellness, and what makes San Diego County unique. Edible San Diego will do more to promote equity, diversity and inclusion. Do you have story or contributor suggestions? Share them with us here.

Edible San Diego wants you to know that we are here for you, and we are listening. We will keep improving to offer you more inspiration and value. As a locally-owned and operated multimedia company, we are professionals who also are your neighbors. May we all rise to the occasion presented to us today finding ways to better care for ourselves, each other, and the planet. We invite you to step into a new relationship with Edible San Diego as an Individual or Business Member to keep a healthy local dialogue going strong.

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