Growing Alaska: family of Alaska brands boost state economy by encouraging local shopping.

• Author: Resz, Heather A.
• Position: MARKETING

As a brand, Alaska is red hot--and not just in the Lower 48. Alaskans love supporting Alaska brands, too. And that's great because money spent with Alaska businesses also has an outsized economic impact on the state's economy, according to Marketing and Program Specialist Jacob Taylor at the University of Alaska Anchorage Business Enterprise Institute. For example, the purchasing power of Alaskans shifting 10 percent of their purchases to Alaska businesses would add $1.1 billion and 4,400 jobs to the state's economy, he says. Taylor manages the Buy Alaska program for the Business Enterprise Institute.

"Buying local Alaskans' products and utilizing local service providers helps diversify and grow the state's economy," Taylor says.

Alaska businesses are mostly small businesses--96.5 percent--with fewer than five hundred employees, according to a 2013 report from the US Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy. Most Alaska businesses are sole-proprietorships, or, if they have employees, they have fewer than twenty, the report says.

Still, the majority of Alaskans working in the private-sector are employees at small businesses--53.1 percent, according to the report. "Small businesses are crucial to the fiscal condition of the state and numbered 69,177 in 2010."

Celebrating Alaska as a brand while boosting its economy is the idea behind Alaska's family of brands: Alaska Grown, Buy Alaska, Made In Alaska, and the Silver Hand program, according to Alaska Department of Commerce's Division of Economic Development Manager Ethan Tyler.

He leads the group responsible for the Made In Alaska brand, which promotes products that are at least 51 percent made, manufactured, or handcrafted in the state.

"It is so important to keep Alaska dollars local and in the Alaska economy," Tyler says.

Buy Alaska is a free program that Alaska businesses can join to help promote their company and as a means to sell their goods and services directly to other Alaska businesses looking for those items or services, Taylor says.

Alaska Division of Agriculture Director Franci Havemeister says the iconic Alaska Grown logo marks food products farmed in Alaska and meets the top two grades of the industry standard. The logo also is ubiquitous in Alaska and beyond on sweatshirts and other clothing items.

The Alaska State Council's Silver Hand emblem communicates to buyers that an item was made in Alaska by a full-time Alaska resident who is at least one-quarter Alaska Native.

Alaska Grown--Fresher by Far

Check any Alaska closet or kitchen. If a resident has been in Alaska for any length of time, chances are good they've purchased a sweatshirt, a sack of potatoes, or some other food or clothing item emblazoned proudly with the familiar Alaska Grown logo.

There is no charge to apply for authorization to use the Alaska Grown logo on "local product packaging for vegetables, meat, milk, eggs, nursery products, honey, furs, and wool products," according to the program's website where businesses also can apply to participate.

Havemeister says it's become common for her to see people wearing the logo as she travels outside Alaska, too.

"Anytime you can link that T-shirt back to a product from Alaska, that's a good thing," she says.

That growing national...