Power of Yorkshire brand can fuel food suppliers’ growth ambitions
THE importance of brand and a product’s name and positioning was the focus of a discussion held for food and beverage manufacturers and suppliers in the region.
The discussion, held in the plush surroundings of Rudding Park Hotel in Harrogate and sponsored by law firm DLA Piper and bank Santander, kicked off with brand name and positioning – how do businesses ensure that they get it right?
The starting point has to be understanding the consumer and target audience, said Charlotte Hambling, UK head of marketing for Leeming Bar-headquartered R&R Ice Cream.
R&R is the third largest ice cream manufacturer in the world, with more than 3,500 employees and three UK manufacturing sites in Leeming Bar, Skelmerdale and Bodmin, as well as sites across Europe. Its international brands include Nestlé, Mondelēz, Oasis,
Disney, Pilpa, Kelly’s and Zielona Budka.
Hambling said the company does as much as it can around insight and finding a unique proposition.
“It is not all about marketing – understand your market and what your unique role is against your competitive set. We do have big brands but they are often challenger brands,” she said.
“Once you have got that right, then you look at packaging, marketing etcetera but the start of the journey is asking what the brand can do within the market.
Stuart Franklin, owner of peanut butter manufacturer Proper Nutty, said that when it came to choosing the company and product name, lots of suggestions were made but that they kept coming back to the term ‘proper’.
He explained: “Nutty because we make peanut butter but ‘proper’… well, we had loads of stuff on white boards but ‘proper’ just kept coming back. It means something is done right and is true and honest – our product is made here in Yorkshire, not in a factory in Holland.”
Luke Raven is managing director of Half Full Beer Co which formed this year to act as an investment firm in the beer industry and aims to grow its portfolio over the next three to five years. It bought the £1.6m turnover Ilkley Brewery for an undisclosed sum in July.
Core brews Mary and Joshua Jane have recently launched in Marks and Spencer’s, supplementing the Ilkley presence in Morrisons, Sainsburys and Asda.
Raven said: “There is lots of growth and innovation in the industry. That’s great but it means there will be lots of change. Now we have bought Ilkley Brewery we are deconstructing the brand and looking at the voice – is it saying what we want it to now but also in the future?”
Conversation moved onto companies being able to leverage the county in which they are based for marketing purposes – using the ‘Yorkshire brand’ to their advantage.
Franklin pointed to Seabrook Crisps which incorporates the fact it is made in Yorkshire within its logo.
“That’s a national brand with international aspirations,” he said. “The Yorkshire brand is bigger than ever with the Tour de France. Yorkshire has more of an identity than any other county in the country.”
Stephen Noblett, international food and drink adviser for UK Trade and Investment, agreed that within the food and drink sector, the Yorkshire brand is particularly powerful. The sector is worth £9.7bn, making Yorkshire the largest food and drink manufacturer in the north of England.
“Companies starting here have the benefit of those brands that are here already so it is a great place to start a food business,” he said.
“When we take brands abroad we do show a map and show where the region is.”
New food firm The Yorkshire Meatball Co was set up after father and son team David and Gareth Atkinson decided there was a gap in the market for speciality meatballs, and acquired their first Harrogate site in 2014.
The company has recently opened a restaurant in York in partnership with Hotel Indigo York on Walmgate as well as having a pop-up at a second destination in Harrogate.
Managing director David Atkinson said: “My inspiration came from seeing a five minute piece on TV about a meatball shop in New York. I did my research and found a recipe for a Yorkshire meatball.”
After extensive research he said he decided to “reclaim the meatball for
Yorkshire”.
“We knew it had to be Yorkshire through and through, with the brand values of Yorkshire embed into the company.”
