Megan Bruning mixes professional experience with small-town roots to bring an authentic perspective to her role as Community Relations Manager. Read on to find out what inspires Megan about Local Choice Produce Market.

What was your background before Local Choice Produce Market?

I grew up in a very small town, where the joke was that the High School barn was bigger than the school itself!  I wouldn’t be surprised if at least 50 percent of the students were lettered with FFA (Future Farmers of America). I remember learning about gardening and composting from a very young age thanks to my Mom, because we always had a backyard garden.

Throughout my young adult years, I worked at a number of jobs: doing promotions for radio stations, retail management, and talent scouting for a local modeling and acting company. Then I had a family and priorities switched. I was a stay-at-home mom and took over the priority of health and nutrition for our kids. We started planting gardens every year at home… and now not only do my kids love it, but they hold me to it.  They are out there helping to pull carrots and pick blueberries and tomatoes.

What does a normal work day look like for you?

I handle the media relations, advertising, social media, web, and employee merchandising. Right now the majority of my day is spent making calls to vendors to secure product, getting our employee uniforms established, and finalizing the design of the website and various marketing campaigns.  I rely heavily on the team around me it’s a lot of work being part of the development of a company like this, but we are all really so excited about it!

I’m working on several marketing campaigns right now that I can’t wait to finally reveal to the public once we’re open. We want to be your farm-fresh neighborhood market, so it’s important to us to get to know all of our neighbors and the local businesses that have been so supportive.

What inspires you about Local Choice?

I’ve been able to bring all my experience of retail, marketing and promotions to something new. It’s been exciting to be part of something that’s never existed before, and to see the effort from the team to protect the integrity of this vision.

T.J. and I are passionate about being involved in how we feed our children. I’m excited to work for a company that values high-quality food the way we do.

How do you feel that Local Choice Produce Market is different from other markets in the area?

Realizing the bar that was set by Don and Georganne in creating a destination market was great, but it’s been equally exciting trying to reach that bar! Throughout this process there has been a lot of time spent researching local products from Oregon and Washington. We needed to learn more about the companies that are out there that share the same values to see if what we were hoping to create was even possible and how we would make it happen. Don has said all along this is not a new idea, we’re not reinventing the wheel, but it’s something that’s never really been done before to this level, and I think it’s something Portland’s been missing.