Julia Zaetta is the founding editor of the new independent Market Magazine, backed by a large retailer.
The second issue of Market Magazine is due soon after launching with its March-April edition earlier this year.
The backer of the project is the food retailer Harris Farm Markets. The launch coincided with the 50th anniversary of the family-owned business now run by three of the five sons of the founders.
Zaetta hadn’t planned on this new adventure. She told Mediaweek she had expected to be moving with the brand she piloted for many years – Better Homes and Gardens – to its new owner, Bauer Media, now Are Media.
Zaetta had been in charge of the Better Homes and Gardens brand for close to 30 years during three tours of duty for three different owners.
“Everything changed when the virus hit and for several months last year, when permitted, I was catching up with lots of people I hadn’t seen for some time as I looked about for something new to do,” said Zaetta.
After many years in publishing, putting her feet up wasn’t an option. “I was meeting many people in the industry I hadn’t seen for a long time. All the time I was thinking I really do need to start something again.”
Zaetta and her partner have a property in the NSW Southern Highlands and she was told to speak with Bowral-based Highlife Publishing, the company behind Highlife Magazine. “I spent two hours with publisher Simon Green. He talked about the Harris Farm Markets forthcoming magazine. He had been selling Highlife Magazine successfully through the retailer for some time.”
Green secured Zaetta to edit the retailer’s new Market Magazine which is sold not only through Harris Farm Markets, but also through 700 newsagents across NSW and near some of the shops planned for its entry into Queensland.
“The title is almost exclusively food. The interesting thing about Harris Farm Markets is how much the shoppers love it. They say they are more of a market than a supermarket.”
So much do shoppers love it, that in a new Choice survey released this week NSW shoppers voted it their favourite food store, ahead of all supermarkets.
“It is an extraordinary place with an extraordinary ethic. They want to make the customer feel very special, offering the shopper a range of the best quality produce.”
At $5.99 the large-format 100-page Market Magazine is great value, but the price drops to just $2.99 for shoppers who are part of the retailer’s Friend of the Farm registered database.
Zaetta noted this isn’t the easiest thing she has ever done, but she’s happy with the launch effort. “I am working with a designer in New York, a food editor in the Blue Mountains and another designer in the Southern Highlands. My sub-editors are in Brisbane and South Australia.
“To be honest I would love to have everyone together in a team so I could walk over and ask questions and try different things on the spot.”
Looking after sales is Diane Dunlea who once worked on Who, Time and then indie titles including Coast. The first edition had about 35 ad pages.
With an impressive-looking chocolate cake on the cover of the launch issue, Zaetta is promising something warm and wonderful for the second winter-themed edition. “People like to do things quickly so that will be part of it.
The new Harris Farm Markets Albury outlet
“The contents need to match the stylish audience who shop at Harris Farm Markets. At the same time it has to be playful to match the lively layout of their stores.”
The Market Magazine editor is confident about the future of print. “Print is not on the way out, it is just not what it was.” Zaetta agreed that there is still a demand for print products, but they are harder to find.
“Distribution is a bigger challenge, as it is harder for people to find magazines. Advertisers who have stuck with print get great results. People engage with the product in a way that they don’t with a digital product.”