Bowl game puts Livingston’s Foster Farms in national spotlight

A certain poultry producer based in Livingston will get national TV exposure Tuesday night via the Foster Farms Bowl.

The Stanford-Maryland matchup on ESPN will help spread the word about a company that has mostly served Western markets over its history.

Foster Farms also will reinforce its brand with sales of wings, corn dogs and other items at the game site, Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

But this is about more than college football fans getting their fill of poultry. The bowl will raise money for anti-hunger efforts, including Second Harvest Food Bank, which serves Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties.

“One of these things we like especially about this bowl is the local and regional charities we believe in,” said Bryan Reese, senior vice president of marketing, sales, research and development at Foster Farms. He talked by phone last week about the bowl, the first ever sponsored by the company.

Foster Farms is not disclosing how much it is paying for the title sponsorship, which will run for three years with an option to renew. Reese said only that it is “a meaningful part of our marketing budget.”

The San Jose Mercury News reported that the game will provide an estimated $2.1 million to each of the participating conferences — the Pac-12 and Big Ten. That would place it among the 10 best-paying bowls out of the 32 that are outside the semifinal rotation that determines the national champion, the newspaper said. Bowl game revenue includes ticket sales, TV rights and sponsorships.

Stanford and Maryland both finished 7-5, well out of the running for a top-tier bowl, but Reese said it’s still a fine matchup. The Cardinal, whose home field in Palo Alto is about 8 miles from Levi’s Stadium, have made runs at national titles in recent years.

The game has a 13-year history. In 2002 and 2003, it was the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl, sponsored by the Stockton-based nut processor. It was the Emerald Bowl from 2004 to 2009, named for the same company’s snack line. It was the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl from 2010 to 2012 and the Fight Hunger Bowl last year.

The previous games were held at AT&T Park in San Francisco, home of the baseball Giants. Levi’s Stadium opened this year for the San Francisco 49ers.

“It’s a terrific venue, absolutely first-class,” Reese said of the 68,500-seat stadium. And on the grass for this one event will be the new Foster Farms logo, amid other advertising at the stadium and on ESPN.

When the deal was announced in November, the bowl’s executive director, Gary Cavalli, said he was “proud and excited” to have Foster Farms involved.

“They are the perfect naming-rights partner for us as we move into a new era at Levi’s Stadium with an iconic matchup of Pac-12 vs. Big Ten,” he said.

The lead-up activities for the teams, which started Friday, have included dinners and tours of San Francisco sites such as Alcatraz and the cable cars. Sunday, the Stanford players volunteered at Glide Memorial Church, one of the San Francisco organizations benefiting from the game. The Terrapins from Maryland did the same at the nearby St. Anthony’s Dining Room. A public rally will take place in Union Square Monday, followed by a ticketed luncheon and a VIP reception.

Second Harvest is the only beneficiary not in the Bay Area. It has had considerable support in the past from Foster Farms, including turkey donations for the holidays and groceries for children in after-school programs.

Foster Farms, founded by Max and Verda Foster at a ranch west of Waterford in 1939, has become the leading poultry brand in the West. It employs about 3,600 people at the Livingston headquarters and chicken plant, about 1,300 in the Turlock turkey operations, and about 7,000 at sites elsewhere in California and other Western and Southern states.

The game will close out a memorable year for Foster Farms. It celebrated its 75th anniversary while dealing with a salmonella outbreak tied to raw chicken from plants in Livingston and Fresno. Federal regulators said the company has taken steps that have reduced the risk.

Foster Farms already sells corn dogs nationwide and some of its frozen chicken in the East. It is looking to expand its market, with help from the bowl game.

“We know that our consumers love football and that people like to eat chicken, particularly chicken wings, while watching it,” Reese said.

This story was originally published December 28, 2014 at 8:08 PM with the headline "Bowl game puts Livingston’s Foster Farms in national spotlight."