Fourteen of the nation’s top food bloggers and registered dietitians were recently featured when Natural Delights hosted it’s second blogger summit last month.

Natural Delights produces the nation’s leading Medjool Date brand, a food that has become increasingly poplar in the health and fitness industry.  At the event Natural Delights featured growers who shared their stories with the bloggers in hopes of relate much needed information to the consumer.

“Our first blogger summit in 2013 taught us a lot about communicating with influencers, and how we can best tell our story in a way that is personal and resonates with each individual’s unique audience,” said David M. Anderson, Director of Marketing at Natural Delights. “We applied those learnings to this year’s Medjool Date Summit by creating truly unique experiences between our influencers and our growers, the Medjool date gardens, Datepac packing facility, and the beautiful Yuma-Bard Valleys.

During their 2-night stay, bloggers and registered dieticians toured Bard Valley, Calif. where Natural Delights Medjool dates are grown. Guests visited the “Big 6” original Medjool date palms that have stood since the 1940’s, and from which have spawned all 250,000 other trees in production. Attendees went up into Medjool date palms to harvest dates with the growers and had the opportunity to taste the fruit right off of the tree. The group then toured Datepac, one of the world’s most technologically advanced medjool date packing facilities, where they learned about the state-of-the-art equipment and their unsurpassed quality assurance standards.

As part of a more personalized approach to experiential marketing, Natural Delights dedicated a significant amount of time to bring growers, influencers and the marketing team together to discuss what is trending with influencers, their unique audience needs, and what opportunities may exist for brand growth within a new item development strategy.

“This summit was such a great experience because it felt like there was a sense of family the entire time, between spending time with the growers, marketing team, and other influencers,” said Alexis Joseph, registered dietician and blogger at Hummusapien. “Being able to see the Natural Delights story from start to finish really helped me understand just how personal the process of harvesting Medjool dates is.”

You can follow Natural Delights Medjool Dates on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram.