Almost a third of the produce grown in the U.S. never gets harvested because it doesn’t meet the superficial standards of traditional grocery stores. Popular online grocer Misfits Market was created to make high-quality food more affordable and accessible while helping break the cycle of food waste. They work directly with farmers and makers to source organic produce and other grocery items that might otherwise go to waste and deliver it directly to consumers at up to 40% off grocery store prices. Misfits Market has continued to find new ways to reduce inefficiency and create new products as they’ve expanded their offering to include meat, seafood, dairy, and popular brand-name pantry staples. As they looked to extend their mission and deliver more affordable variety to customers with a new line of private label goods, Misfits Market collaborated with New York-based brand design studio ThoughtMatter to create an identity for their new brand, Odds & Ends.

“The Misfits Market team and Founder & CEO Abhi Ramesh have a bold vision for the future of the brand,” explains ThoughtMatter Creative Director Ben Greengrass. “The Odds & Ends private label brand is the next step in their journey to fulfill their mission, specifically sourcing quality food from a variety of producers and suppliers, and making it available for every customer during their weekly shop. This new brand identity ensured these products felt like a natural extension for the Misfits Market brand. It’s the same ambition, with a bit of a twist.”

Communicating this mission and a new private label in a way that was cohesive and in alignment with the existing Misfits Market brand proved to be the biggest challenge. Also, having earned a loyal and enthusiastic fanbase, Misfits Market needed its new offering to serve that audience’s expectations, so that consumers could trust it to be as rigorously high-quality and sustainably sourced.

This led the ThoughtMatter team to go straight to the source, taking cues from various loyal fans of Misfits Market around the country and mining the numerous Misfits Market super-users on Facebook for research. Of course, the ThoughtMatter team also ordered the Misfits Market boxes to understand the experience of being a fan, and conducted exploratory workshops with the Misfits Market team.

“Our focus and richest insights were with the brand loyalists,” continues Greengrass. “Our primary research goal was to get to know the people who delighted in receiving their Misfits Market box, documented their ‘haul,’ and shared recipes with the community regularly. Odds & Ends would ultimately be for the devotees who evangelize on Misfits Market’s behalf.”

The result was a private label identity and packaging that stayed true to the voice of Misfits Market, borrowing from the playful character of the master brand and mission-driven tone of its messaging.

With confident branding over grounded earth tones, the designs are a little offbeat—a strong complement to the logo’s quirky letterforms. Meanwhile, the packaging features colorful illustrations, created in collaboration with the Misfits Market team, that convey an abundance and movement of product. The illustrations are reflective of Misfits Market’s offering and sourcing strategy, with the packaging itself arranged in a simple hierarchy that inspires trust. This approach is deftly applied over a wide array of products—with different types of food and kinds of packaging—designed to signal and amplify a sense of cohesion and allow for future expansion.

Overall, ThoughtMatter handled the brand identity, brand architecture and packaging design, as well as messaging and copywriting. They also came up with the name “Odds & Ends,” working closely with the brand’s team to strike the right tone for Misfits Market fans.

Inspired by Misfits Market’s mission, ThoughtMatter was excited to work with a brand taking such proactive steps to change the thinking around accessibility, affordability, and sustainability. “We love working with businesses that are leading these important conversations,” says ThoughtMatter Managing Partner Jessie McGuire. “By working with farmers and food producers to source food that might otherwise go to waste, they are showing the positive effect a brand can have on the world. Now, with our work on Odds & Ends, we hope we’ve helped them continue to inspire new fans while staying true to the old ones.“