Pioneering the meat-free movement since its establishment in 1985, Quorn has consistently been a trailblazer in the food industry.
Despite the success achieved by Quorn Professionals, the brand’s Foodservice division, it grappled with a lack of differentiation from its retail business counterpart. The transformative evolution of consumer behaviours in 2022 brought about a pivotal shift in the landscape, unveiling a remarkable opportunity within the category. This became a golden prospect for Quorn Professionals to seize, positioning them to play a vital role in shaping the future of protein-based innovation.
Yet, challenges loomed on the horizon. Growing competition in the meat-free category and a prevailing perception that the Quorn brand was outdated and lacking innovation demanded a strategic transformation.
Faced with competitors targeting customers relentlessly, the objective became clear: carve out a unique brand proposition that fostered an emotional connection with the audience and highlighted what made Quorn Professionals the protein of choice.
In August 2023, Quorn boldly executed a strategic rebrand of its Foodservice division, now known as QuornPro. Embracing the new proposition to ‘Spark Quriosity’, the brand tackled competition head-on by reinforcing that legacy signifies expertise, and scale equates to opportunities for customers. The results were nothing short of exceptional, with just under 15% commercial growth witnessed within the business unit since the rebrand, marked by substantial impact across social and media channels.
This success underscored QuornPro’s newfound position as a leader in culinary inspiration and innovation within the thriving meat-free market.
Entry report
Quorn Professionals – the Foodservice division of Quorn – already had strong awareness due to the retail brand and its 30-year brand legacy as the trailblazer i n the meat-free sector. Quorn was a pioneer in the category with the discovery of mycoprotein, and the name ‘Quorn’ became synonymous with ‘meat-free’. Due to changing consumer behaviours , the desire to consume alternative protein became more popular as part of everyday life from restaurant dining to office canteens and hospital beds increasing the demand for menu changes. By 2022, 50% of the global population were looking to reduce their meat intake with 40% wanting meat-free options when dining out.*
However, with this opportunity came an influx of new competition, with defiant brands like VFC, THIS! and Beyond Meat entering the market with their disruptive brand positioning, messaging, and visual aesthetic. Quorn Professionals’ customers were reporting a constant onslaught of competitors knocking at their doors, pushing the latest ‘innovation’ and why they were newer and better than Quorn.
With the new and uncomfortable threat of competition and market share to defend, we adopted a more maverick look and feel.
But, by emulating the challengers, and with little differentiation from the retail brand, our legacy meant we weren’t seen as category leaders, but more like ‘the dad at the disco’. Whilst looking at the current landscape was important due to the everchanging nature of the sector, we needed an evergreen brand positioning. One that would reflect us as leaders in culinary expertise, protein innovation and sustainability, sit above short-lived sector trends, and stand the test of time. This required a brand transformation to show our audience that there is more to Quorn than mince and sausages - and a logo change or shift of mission statement wasn’t going to cut it.
* Kantar Profiles/Mintel, July 2018, September 2019, September 2020, August 2021, August 2022 and July 2023
Strategy
We had three strategic gaps to address before developing the new brand creative direction; identify an ownable position in the market, define the target audience, and establish a new brand proposition. This was all grounded in insight from extensive research, 7 customer interviews, 15 competitors analysed and broader industry and consumer behaviour insights.
The positioning was led by reframing perceived weakness back to a strength.
Although Quorn Professionals was an established brand, the newer entrants who were unconstrained by legacy and heritage had been turning our strengths into vulnerabilities.
The noisy VC-backed brands were weaponising social media to promote propositions based on CSR and ESG, taking share of voice and repositioning them as ‘old news’. The new positioning allowed us to speak from a place of leadership in culinary innovation – not comparing our products to meat, but showing how chefs can use our products to conceptualise new and inventive dishes loved by their guests.
By taking a leadership direction worthy of our heritage, our ownable position was a unique combination of experience, and the ability to create and innovate at will, enabling us to clearly establish our USP – ‘spark culinary imagination’. Identifying a unifying attitude across a broad customer profile across all hospitality sectors and departments, from development chefs to NHS buyers , we established the new target audience as ‘the chef in us all’.
Our competitive advantage had now become a motivating ‘idea’ that could be delivered in hundreds of ways and our the proposition of ‘Spark Quriosity’ was created, and QuornPro was born. The brand was elevated with a distinctively professional visual identity and tone of voice rooted in the idea of sparking Quriosity. The distinctive Q device was leveraged to expand the visual language, crafted with a finer line weight and gradient to give it a sense of movement.
The colour palette was designed around the key Quorn Orange to connect to our heritage whilst differentiating the business unit from the Retail division. Further assets and copy centred around the new tone of voice of Profound, Provocative and Progressive were developed to house messaging and the photography direction was developed to inspire culinary imagination. Our values of ‘Stay Qurious’, ‘What if?’ and ‘What’s next?’ channelled the values that led to our discovery of the wonder ingredient that became mycoprotein.
Results
QuornPro turned what was perceived to be a weakness into a strength - as the OG of meat-free we are now re-establishing ourselves the most innovative brand in Foodservice inspiring our broad audience through our new brand direction.
This transformation has only been in the market since its soft launch at the end of August 2023 and is already creating a positive impact with customers and prospective customers – seeing an overall commercial growth of just under 15% across the UK and EU since the launch, including 30+ additional wholesale listings.
The relaunch was debuted internally as an immersive experience, which generated excitement around the possibilities this new direction will take the business unit both in terms of brand perception and commercial results.
The concept was brought to life externally in four principal ways: targeted advertising, sales team toolkits and through PR and social channels to capitalise on opportunities for audience engagement. We obtained 51 pieces of earned on-trade media coverage across 22 different publications, and significantly higher engagement cthrough social media channels. Bold new brand creative and copy debuted our new proposition and concept ‘Never just a Burger’. This creative appeared in media publications including The Caterer, Bar Magazine, TUCO University Catering and Restaurant Magazine as well as on social media.
Instagram saw a 44% follower growth from the re-launch date, and a 42.8% increase on content interaction. Our Linkedin channel saw our launch video achieve 23,656 impressions.
Our strategic approach extended beyond the mere rebranding process; we gauged its impact on our target audience through a brand perception survey conducted in collaboration with Propel & Bar Magazine.
The results were exceptional 87% of respondents acknowledged the newfound professionalism exuded by the brand, while an impressive 78% recognized its innovative flair. A resounding 86% perceived the brand as modern which was a key focus area in the rebrand.
These statistics were not just numbers; they resonated with the sentiments of our audience, who shared feedback like, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in the category—it is a completely
new take on meat-free and stands in its own right as a protein brand, not a substitute,’ and ‘it feels more 2024 than 1992!’
The positive reception translated into tangible commercial gains for QuornPro. A notable 36% of respondents expressed their intent to increase spending based on the new brand direction, with an additional 58% considering a potential spend increase. Post-launch interviews with QuornPro clients reinforced this point. The Culinary Director of the Alchemist exclaimed, ‘QuornPro has excelled themselves by facilitating change in products and brand awareness. Their willingness to adapt and modernize through innovationd has given them the platform to excel in an environment that is becoming crowded by similar product profiles. QuornPro says it all. Professional branding to do their innovative products justice!’
The co-founder of The Food People echoed this sentiment, stating,
‘I simply love the new QuornPro re-brand. The new design brings the brand right up to date and has all the excitement and dynamism of our great industry captured within it.’
The resonance of our brand overhaul echoed not only in statistics but also in the positive comments from our audience and industry experts alike.
Our Europe Head of Marketing attributes this to ‘Taking a strategic approach to redefining the brand, creating an identity that is unique, ownable and professional providing the perfect base to regain trust and build brand equity’ and our UK Marketing Exec believes the brand platform ‘inspires creativity and cooking outside of the box’ in our audience as well as content creation teams.
“Now, the brand bursts with a vibrant dynamism and boundless creativity, instantly evoking a sense of assurance in the quality of the products. It’s clear that a professional touch has been added, making it significantly more innovative than the previous branding.”
Simon Kolar, CEO and founder of Guerilla Chefs & Owner of
a multi-site restaurant company
“The recent Quorn rebrand has resulted in modern, stylish and foodie visuals, and is very digitally impactful, as seen in particular on their Instagram feed. It’s a big thumbs up from the team at Bidfood.”
