Food Branding: All-embracing Overview

What is food branding?

Gradually, enjoying different types of cuisine is becoming more than having a meal but an experiential time when everything matters – the taste of food, how it’s packed, the atmosphere and it’s related not only to upmarket establishments but also fast-food chains and trucks. Personalising clients’ experience, finding unique features to appeal to your audience and setting the strategy that will help define the vector of development is called food branding.

The differentiation is usually conducted by food & drink brand agencies that are gifted with talents to deliver solutions buyers are waiting for. Forming the image and reputation of a food brand might be only partial – with taking care of product packaging or forming identity for a business itself, or comprehensive – coming up with the central idea, considering the symbols like logo and naming, designing the uniform, and even the location advancement.

Completing food industry branding successfully acts as a path to super structuring your business reputation, establishing ties between your brand and your clients, defining the way of development for achieving great results in the future that will have a long-lasting effect.

What are the key elements of effective branding for food?

The range of services needed for every individualising project varies and can’t be predicted without knowing the objectives and details of a concrete case. Yet, talking about the most of them, we can single out the significant ones that usually are included in a great deal of innovative projects.

For them to be effective and bring outstanding results, the components should be all of a piece and in tune with the main idea in order to appeal to people, never to be forgotten and distinguished. That’s why applying for the assets creation, it’s advised not to divide types of work to different agencies in order not to lose the consistency.

The elements are separated into a few categories that include making strategic decisions and the creative side of differentiating brands, embracing all-encompassing verbal and visual identities. Let’s explore them further in detail.

Embracive strategy

Turning your business idea into a pearl is a question that requires thorough preparation to find out how to take the full advantage of your resources and secure a high return on investment, so it’s better not to overlook this step, since the strategic approach will help you establish a cohesive image of your brand that catches customers’ attention and is quickly memorisable. It usually consists of:

• Market research – exploring your audience preferences and the ways your brand could correspond to their needs or align with their fancies and exploring what food branding ideas can be the most beneficial in your exact case;
• Positioning – throughout this stage, the desirable positioning is determined as well as they ways of what measures should be taken to achieve your goal of the market share;
• Trends implementation – there are many long-term tendencies now that are centred around green practices, food tech innovations that could be applied to your business in order to win your customers’ loyalty;
• Ascertaining values and missions – purpose-driven decisions are valued in every sphere and if you want your business to be great, it should have it in order not to be lost for customers who make conscious choices.

All-encompassing identity

When you know what course to follow, approach the time of forming the visual part of your brand that, as it was stated above, can embrace such aspects as design of the location, clothes and decor or the placement of stands if it’s a food festival branding. Talking about the minimal set of the design deliverables, we can’t bypass:

• Logo design – a cohesive and recognisable look is achieved through painting a captivating logo that represent your brand and could be attached to stationary, clothes and covers to enhance memorising;
• Colour palette and typography – your clients don’t only remember your name and logo but they usually can identity your business by the colours you use without any additional signs;
• Packaging design – if you sell for here or to take away, in both cases it’s important to think about the manner in which you serve the food. How long your packaging should protect the products, is it eco-friendly or not?
• Photos, illustrations, special symbols – whether you style your location entirely or operate digitally and sell goods on the Internet, additional imagery of food product branding will facilitate the efforts in forming a consistent brand look.

Comprehensive brand language

Without a distinctive verbal identity, a brand seems bland and unclear, losing important instruments that communicate the values of your company. Even the producers of the products that are minimalistic, and it’s their main promotional feature, can’t help but use language, not mentioning food sellers that need to provide people with the menus and special offers.

• Naming – without thinking long, everyone is capable of taking out the memory names of food brands of different categories – named after the founder, a created word, a phrase that clearly states what they provide, choosing the right option will influence the overall picture;
• Storytelling and messaging – laying the foundation of a company that evokes emotions not only because of food but with the entire chain, from its production to cooking and serving. Variety of plots like “secret recipes” or “the family recipe” will differentiate a company even if it’s new;
• Tone of voice – choosing an appropriate tone of your communication with clients also contributes memorability and devoutness. For some categories of customers restricted style is what they want, for others – playful or friendly tones are winning matches.

How does food product branding impact consumer behaviour?

Food revamp is usually done in order to strike a chord in people’s hearts and customer’s behaviour is the crux of the matter that needs to be considered attentively while choosing the way of individualising activities.

Below we pointed out how brand differentiation influences consumers’ acts so you could put it into practice:

Branded, highly recognizable products are most likely to be chosen

First and foremost, when a product or street food branding was conducted and the offerings have unique and appealing identities with meaningful messages and powerful designs, they will be approached more often due to attention to the small details that enhance credibility.

To illustrate the point, a customer would rather choose a place with a welcoming atmosphere where nothing – from colours to pricing tags doesn’t look odd than going to a place that is disharmonic, doesn’t have a determined style, neglects the subconscious choice of people that matters a lot in forming identities since even the colour of your truck causes certain emotions.

Appropriate packaging stimulates purchasing goods

Your product cover has not only to be alluring but proper, since not in every single case bright cover will be a winning formula of attracting people’s attention. When your wrapping perfectly complements the essence of your brand, it will catch the sight of your audience. Consider also the packaging and labelling your products and study the influence of changing the packaging even a little.

A proper story evokes curiosity

The stories, selling food, are different – sometimes it’s just enough to pursue the path of organic origin of provisions or promising of matchless taste. However, there are restaurants and manufacturers that create entire plots to entertain the customers as it’s with KFC and even build hypotheses that lead to appearing a lot of customer made content that spreads brand awareness.

As it’s with The Ivy’s glamorous chic, pre-theater menus and elegance that is a bright representative of british luxurious dining and Prent A Manger with fresh “sun-kissed” idea of quality and taste are portrayals of effective restaurant branding that motivates people approach them at first and return once and again.

Statements of quality or sustainability foster making buying decisions

Nowadays food industry branding is being conducted with the thorough consideration of purpose driven decisions for every aspect of the brand development since younger audiences care about it. Freshly founded startups and even the giants of the industry that have been operating for decades and have already had their loyal customers, invest their time and money in order to change the vector to reasonableness and environmental responsibility.

Captivating food branding examples

To see how a decent sustenance revamp works on practice, let’s scrutinise some remarkable examples like:

Leon. This British fast food chain that was established in 2004 is different from any others due to Leon’s mission to change the people’s perception of such kinds of food and remove the mark “unhealthy” that doesn’t always correspond to the truth. The maker follows the idea of “Naturally fast food“, relying on fresh greens and herbs making their seasoning and sticking to the Mediterranean diet that is considered as one the healthiest.

Another, professional technique implemented in their strategy is offering seasonal menus that evoke curiosity and anticipation. Leon fosters sustainability initiatives by reducing plastic and having done food packaging branding in the manner that it helps them support ambitious goals, that also include preferring alternative sources of energy and plant-based options they provide.

Greggs. From a small idea of delivering eggs to households, Greggs business, founded in 1939 has grown to a chain of restaurants with more than 2000 locations and a very good example of fast food branding. They pursue the simple idea of delivering fresh meals for breakfast and snacks with options like baguettes, rolls, porridge, pizzas and crisps, being one of the favourite places for quick eating in the UK.

Apart from the great mission to decrease a high level of using plastic in packaging till 2025, Greggs promotes efforts directed to improving the world through supporting health and well-being. The brand doesn’t turn a deaf ear to the problems related to the industry and take proactive steps. Considering their brand style and elements, simplicity plays an important role in their representation whether it’s about the website, packaging or locations.

The Cheese Truck. The UK firm was founded in 2014 and its food truck branding is fascinating, revolving around the feeling of nostalgia, with the different shapes of yellow and fonts that send their clients back in time. They also provide an opportunity to book a truck for some event to make them memorable and support British cheese manufacturers, offering their clients the best options.

Even though the main idea is centred on cheese, The Cheese Truck has a diverse menu with variant ingredients that complement the main one. To promote their business online, the brand has a consistent web presence through various platforms – Facebook, Instagram and their website with appealing imagery and well-though texts and statements.

Daylesford Organic. This UK farm shop is a luxury British food supplier that since 2002 has delivered goods that are much more than food but a memorable experience. The top-rank fleur is backed up by fonts. Visitors are provided with the opportunity to stay in one of their locations such as Daylesford Farm, decorated with a special taste and is a perfect option to spend a day off.

Through their messaging, distinctive product packaging, experiential offerings like cookery school, special unforgettable workshops, the opportunity to have private events on their locations, sustainable approach to doing business and the identities – visual and verbal – this food brand leaves a matchless impression and remains in the minds as something unusual and unique, worth of attention.

Poppies Fish & Chips. This brand, founded in 1952, is a great example of food branding in the UK that in words and imagery gives the feeling of experiencing visiting a classic restaurant that sells fish & chips as it was in 50th, staying true to themselves and at the same time promotes wise choices in diets, uses resources responsibly, chooses recyclable packaging and cares about their employees.

Everything, starting from the staff uniform and signage to the location decoration and inside and outside is consistent with sticking to one style that allows their customers to dive in the remarkably warm atmosphere. Poppies Fish & Chips doesn’t forget about being up-to-date in the digital sphere, having a website with all the information needed and an Instagram account with almost 16,000 followers.

Conclusion

If you want to stand out of the crowd and be innovative in this fast-changing world, eats revamp will really come in handy. Implementation of the strategies that will foster your business growth, establish bonds with customers, differentiate your products from the others even if there are many offers similar to yours in the market is a method that has been proven with a great deal of examples.

Yet, it also requires your special attention to detail and a lot of work to be done – studying the audience and understanding their needs, evaluating the state of the market and making decisions that will have a long-lasting effect. The assistance of experienced professionals that know the ropes is what helps put it all together to make your business thrive.

To ease the pressure of selecting a suitable vendor, possess knowledge of your industry, having dealt with the tasks like yours and specialise in delivering solutions necessary for carrying out your project, we offer to input the data about your business and your expectations in this form so we could find an agency that will bring your company to prosperity.