New to the category, Gourmade’s range of premium frozen mains, sides and desserts come with a delicious new positioning, identity and packaging design from Robot Food. Gourmade is a new ‘frozen from fresh’ ready meal brand about to take frozen foods into the 21st century. Brand owners, Jo and Glenn Devenish, had identified a need for frozen food of exceptional quality and greater variety, that offers guilt-free satisfying meals without the faff. After purchasing a small frozen ready meal company, they asked Leeds-based, strategic branding agency, Robot Food to create a new brand.

Frozen has plenty going for it as a category. Viewed as wholesome with low waste appeal, consumer demand is there but the brands aren’t. The uninspiring reality of frozen aisles – dark and muted premium products, general brand sameness, condensation and frosty packaging – presented a golden opportunity to make a lasting impact and take the compromise out of frozen. Of course, the main advantage of frozen is convenience, which ultimately inspired the team’s strategy of empowering people to spend less time in the kitchen and more time enjoying life.

From this, the team created the name ‘Gourmade’, developed the mission and strapline ‘Live more. Cook less’, and a designed a joyful brand identity packed with warmth, personality and homemade appeal. Brightly coloured packs shout loud and clear, and the friendly tone of voice chats about the benefits of locked-in goodness, great quality and how there’s more to life than slaving over a stove. Stylish pack architecture includes a new handwritten font, created by Robot Food, that looks as though you’ve cooked the food and hand-labelled it yourself. ‘Frozen from fresh’ labels on each pack are randomly placed like stickers for an extra home-cooked feel.

The team also created a bespoke pack format where the inspiration starts as soon as you pick up the box, with top flaps that lift to reveal delicious foodie photography and personalised serving suggestions from Jo Devenish herself. The results are set to bring new life to the frozen category, and a comms strategy and intuitive new e-commerce website are both currently in development, also by Robot Food. Launching now, the brand is attracting interest from independents through to retailers worldwide. So far, the range offers seven main meals, five sides and three desserts.

Main meals include Mac, Cheese & Bacon, Beef Bourguignon and Fish Pie. Sides include Posh Peas and Potato Dauphinoise. Puddings include Salted Caramel Roulades and Raspberry Cheesecakes. Look out for Gourmade in Budgen’s, Simply Fresh and Spar, with more retailers in the UK and further afield soon to follow. Jo Devenish, said, “Ours is really good quality food, lots of variety, as convenient as ever, and made with love. We wanted to communicate this on pack and change negative perceptions of frozen food, and Robot Food has delivered. We’re frankly amazed at the response we’re getting.

Gourmade has fantastic shoppability and standout, and an irresistible personality that balances quality with charisma. We couldn’t be happier.” Simon Forster, Robot Food’s Founder and Exec. Creative Director, said, “In terms of personality and variety, existing ‘frozen’ brands were leaving consumers cold. Gourmade is a real game-changer and the bold, bright packs ARE the brand. It was great working with the Gourmade team to breathe new life back into the frozen aisles with something that tastes as good as it looks, and offers consumers such an inspiring range of great quality food.”

Design: Robot Food

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