THE East Anglian company behind one of the UK's most revered poultry brands has invested in a major rebranding to build on its success. Green Label Foods, based at Debach, near Woodbridge, is changing its name from today to Gressingham Foods, to reflect the name of its most popular brand, the Gressingham Duck.

THE East Anglian company behind one of the UK's most revered poultry brands has invested in a major rebranding to build on its success.

Green Label Foods, based at Debach, near Woodbridge, is changing its name from today to Gressingham Foods, to reflect the name of its most popular brand, the Gressingham Duck.

The company, which won the overall Business of the Year title in the EADT's 2005 Anglian Business Awards, sponsored by Bank of Scotland Corporate, has developed its new identity with the help of Ipswich-based design agency Propeller Design.

“Our business is split approximately 50/50 between poultry wholesalers, who supply some of the top hotels and restaurants throughout the UK, and retail customers, the largest of which is Sainsbury's,” said William Buchanan, commercial director at Gressingham Foods.

“We acquired the breeding rights to the Gressingham Duck in 1989 and over the years, as we diversified into different customer markets, it became apparent to us that not all of our customers were readily associating Green Label Foods with the Gressingham Duck. Instead, we were becoming known as 'the Gressingham Duck people'.

“In addition, because we have grown relatively quickly and have added many new products to our range since we started, our product packaging had become inconsistent. The re-brand has given us a great opportunity to review the company name, update the packaging, review our website and co-ordinate all of our marketing material under one new brand identity.”

Melissa Michael, marketing manager at Gressingham Foods, added: “Gressingham Duck, Gressingham Goose and speciality poultry such as guinea fowl, quail and poussin are niche, high quality products that we supply into some of the top restaurants in the UK including Claridges, Gordon Ramsay's and Gary Rhodes'.

“It was, therefore, essential that this quality be reflected in our packaging together with clear information about where the product comes from and how it is farmed.”

Propeller Design was appointed in September 2005 to create a new look for Gressingham Foods which could be applied across all aspects of the business including its product packaging, vehicle livery, stationery and site signage.

“Our brief was to create a brand identity that communicated the high quality of the Gressingham range of products,” said Simon Milldown, Propeller's creative director.

“After extensive research into the food market, particularly looking at how other premiums brands positioned their products to trade buyers and consumers, we developed an identity for Gressingham which establishes the 'g' symbol as a quality marque.

“This symbol is used across the company's livery, stationery and most importantly packaging, where it appears alongside stunning full colour photography.”

Stephen Stebbings, Propeller's managing director, said the challenge came from producing designs that would work well across such a large and diverse range of products.

“The Gressingham product range incorporates a huge variety of different label types and these, of course, need to be tailored to their specific use, whether for example they're designed to appeal to chefs, wholesalers or consumers,” he said.

“There is also a multitude of other information that needs to be incorporated, dependant on the product to be labelled, for example, bar code and weight, cooking instructions, nutritional guidelines and 'use by' information. That's not to mention the boxes, vehicle liveries, signage and the website that were part of the brief.

“We were delighted to have the opportunity to work with a leading local company like Gressingham on their re-brand,” he added. “There's been a lot of learning for both parties - it was the first time Gressingham had commissioned such a major project from a design agency - and it will definitely be an on-going relationship.”

Gressingham Foods operates a fully integrated farming system with breeding, hatching and growing all taking place within a small area of East Anglia.

The farming side of the business - originally known as Green Label Farms, and now to bear the name Gressingham Farms - is a separate company and supplies Gressingham Ducks to the foods side.

The Green Label brand will remain for a number of line that sit within the “standard” tier of products, but these too have had a makeover with new packaging to give them a fresh and contemporary look.

“We are confident that the new name and look will take the company forward for the foreseeable future and continue to establish the Gressingham brand as a household name,” said William Buchanan.

www.gressinghamfoods.co.uk.