Bonafide Beefs Up Offerings & Brand
Today, bone broth company Bonafide Provisions unveiled a new brand identity, including a rebrand of its bone broth and “drinkable veggies” lines, and a new line of frozen soups. The goal is to create a unified look that better captures the company’s voice and that can better support line extensions.
“As we we branched out of bone broth as a single product and we started incorporating it into other [products] we really found that the bone broth and drinkable veggies looked like distant cousins, they didn’t look like brother and sister,” co-founder and CMO Alexandra Rains told NOSH. “Also our brand and our brand voice that we had weren’t quite aligning with what we were seeing on pack.”
Design firm Bex Brands is responsible for the new aesthetic.
The new company logo keeps the brand’s signature barn but addresses it as a more stylistic outline with rays to mimic the way Bonafide’s products help consumers “radiate health.”
Rains said the company wanted to embrace a simple, “modern farmhouse” look in order to convey that the company takes classic dishes, such as broth, and modernizes them for today’s consumer.
The broths will now have a different packaging as well, with gusseted sides that will allow the bags to sit flat on shelf and in consumers’ freezers.
Sales have been good, according to Rains and her co-founder, Sharon Brown. in 2017, according to Brown, Bonafide chicken broth was the second highest selling item within the natural frozen entree category, beating out some of the top frozen pizzas and chicken nuggets. The brand is now sold in over 6,500 retailers.
However, the pair knowledge there were areas where the packaging for their drinkable veggies could have worked harder for the brand. Formerly named after attributes such as “glow” or “thrive,” the label now emphasizes the use of bone broth as a base and each drink’s key ingredient, be it carrots or beets. Another struggle, Rains said, was conveying to consumers that this wasn’t a juice — although it was merchandised alongside them — but rather a savory beverage.
“When you’re expecting a drink of orange juice, but you get milk, it’s confusing to the palate,” Rains said was the feedback. “Both are delicious, but if you’re not prepared for what you are going to get, it can be confusing.”
Adding to the brothy brethren is a new line of frozen soups that Brown said are on “an entirely different level” then the competition thanks to the addition of bone broth.
Bonafide had previously sold soups to clients of Rains’ and Brown’s nutrition practice, as well as on their website, but the pair decided to focus on broth once they took investment and saw how fast the broths were moving in retail. Now, the soups are back, courtesy of a Whole Foods Market buyer who wanted them ASAP. Although the line has been temporarily delayed in going into Whole Foods due to the retailer’s push back of category reset deadlines, Sprouts and Natural Grocers have already both picked up the line.
Brown wanted to release a frozen soup, in order to maintain the product’s ability to be a household staple. Making a shelf stable product wasn’t an option because of the ingredients and processes that it would require, she said, and refrigerated products have a short shelf life. Having it in the freezer allows consumers to purchase in advance and defrost when needed. “You don’t have to plan for it.” Brown noted, “It’s just there when you need it.”
Some may find it unusual that Bonafide is embracing soup, while center store stalwarts like Campbells and Progresso are struggling with slumping sales. Brown said those older brands aren’t listening to consumers.
“These people who are putting soup out, they have it all wrong,” she said.This isn’t how you make soup at home. You don’t store it in the cupboard, you store it in the freezer or the refrigerator and its actually good for you. The reason soup sales are down is because of the ingredients in [those] soups. Millennials want clean ingredients, you can’t relabel your soup and fool this generation.”
