Strategic food and drink brand design consultancy, The Collaborators has rebranded the UK’s best-selling ambient bone broth, from Take Stock to Freja Natural Norwegian Bone Broth. The repositioning aims to drive category growth and assert Freja as the leading brand in stocks and broths.

Originally launched during lock down, Take Stock quickly achieved best-seller status on Amazon in the UK. However, founders Jessica Higgins and Ed Armitage recognised that to fully realise the potential of their award-winning product and successful business model, they would need a brand. They worked with The Collaborators to establish a new positioning and distinctive brand identity.

A key challenge was to address the issue of provenance: unlike its competitors, Take Stock was neither made in Britain nor Organic. The name was also problematic as it was hard to own, didn’t translate well in other languages and added to the confusion between bone broth and stock.

The Collaborators recommended leaning into the brand’s Scandi provenance. Its research revealed that Norwegian culture is perceived as clean, healthy, outdoorsy and generally very positive. It’s also consistently voted one of the happiest countries in the world with the lowest use of antibiotics for food-producing animals in Europe, including Organic farming. In fact, Organic doesn’t even exist in Norway because high animal welfare and good farming practices are the norm.

With a clear strategic direction, the name Freja perfectly captured the essence of the brand with its soft, nurturing sound and Scandi origins. The positioning was built around the idea that Freja natural Norwegian Bone Broth is “a better life filøsofi”, on a mission to help people live well, respect nature and eat happy.

Subsequently, The Collaborators created a distinctive tone of voice and established Freja’s minimal, bright, happily Scandi brand style.

With the need to stand-out both on-screen and shelf, packaging has a light, bright simplicity and hints of the previous Take Stock pack design. Inspired by Nordic graphics, geometric shapes come together to create quirky variant illustrations that cue flavour and add some Scandi personality.

The rest of the brand world in contrast, is fresh and paired-back, with a limited colour palette that allows important information and packaging to pop.

The soft launch is already rolling out across packaging, comms and a new website and is receiving an overwhelmingly positive response.

Mary Lewis, Creative Director at The Collaborators said, “We wanted to build a complete brand for Jess and Ed. One that’s built on clear purpose and values and is authentic across all its touchpoints. It was important that we added personality and charm too and Freja’s Norwegian provenance was a gift in that regard. We had a lot of good stuff to work with!”

Founder of Freja, Jessica Higgins added, “The Collaborators have always been enthusiastic and positive about our brand. It’s been very well received by our customers and the trade too. We’re delighted with the rebrand.”