All About Food and wagamama bring the Asian restaurant brand’s unique magic into retail, with a range of meal kits, pastes and sauces to encourage consumers to create their own wagamama experience at home. All with design by Brandon.

With the UK hospitality industry pretty much closed down for most of 2020, wagamama launched ‘Wok from Home’, which allowed consumers to recreate their favourite dishes under the guidance of its Global Executive Chef and Brand Ambassador, Steve Mangleshot, but in their own way.

After seeing the positive impact of Wok From Home, wagamama was inspired to promote the benefits of nourishing both body and mind through cooking, and make it easier for people to do so. The brand had discovered that consumers want to expand their cooking repertoire but that they’re unsure of what to do. But, positive eating, positive living has long been a wagamama philosophy and so the emphasis of the new grocery range is placed on giving buyers the tools they need to recreate the beloved waga taste, but allowing for a touch of creative flair.

Steve Conchie, Executive Creative Director at Brandon, says:
“This was the basis for the design territory of ‘add your own touch’, which is brought to life on pack through photography that heroes the food, and illustrations that visually represent the consumer ‘adding their own touch’ and getting creative in the kitchen.”

The back of pack makes it easy for consumers to recreate the restaurant flavours with clear ‘shop’ and ‘cook’ sections for the ingredients list and cooking instructions, as well as handy tips, tricks and hacks to make the range as versatile as possible.

Conchie continues:
“Obviously, it was also important to make this range clearly from wagamama to drive brand awareness in a new channel, so its instantly recognisable identity takes pride of place against a black background to signal its premium quality. Additional key assets, such as the wagamama red tab and Wok from Home logo, are used to communicate its ‘from bowl to soul’ message and to create a clear link back to the all-important tips and cooking instructions to encourage trial.”

Clare Furlonger, Marketing Director at All About Food, reflects:
“Brandon has been a fantastic partner in bringing the wagamama grocery range to life. With restaurant footfall obviously down on previous years, and consumer attitudes and lifestyles constantly changing, the brand needed a way to remain relevant in consumers’ lives. The new range actively gives shoppers the courage to be a little more adventurous through the familiarity of wagamama’s classics loved by so many – and hopefully many more to come.”

And, true to wagamama’s kaizen philosophy (meaning good change), the brand’s promise of ‘Every Bowl Makes a Difference’ means a commitment to donate all profits that wagamama make from the sale of the range in the first twelve months to YoungMinds.

wagamama CEO, Thomas Heier, concludes:
“After seeing so many of our guests benefit from cooking along with Steve during the lockdown, we were inspired. We wanted to make it easier for our guests to enjoy the mental and physical benefits of cooking, long after lockdown. We hope our new range will help more people to do just that. Over the last year, we’ve worked closely with YoungMinds to support the important work that they do to make a positive difference to young people’s mental health, and we will be donating 100% of wagamama’s profits for the first twelve months to YoungMinds.”