Food start-up Mingle has launched a new look that reflects its product mantra – to provide consumers a ‘better for you’ offering that is entirely different from traditional, heritage seasoning brands. PKN spoke to founder Jordyn Evans to find out more.
When Mingle’s founder, Jordyn Evans, launched the brand seven years ago, she started with a $40,000 investment of her own savings. She says she quickly learnt how to build a startup business from the ground up, even teaching herself how to create Mingle’s packaging with no prior experience. But now that the brand is stocked in 2500 Coles and Woolworths stores across Australia and New Zealand, she felt ready to take Mingle to the next level with a rebrand.
“The business had reached a point where it was time to bring in some experts and refresh the packaging to make it even better and to provide a bit more continuity as Mingle continues to expand into different categories in the supermarket,” Evans says, going on to tell PKN that over the last 12 months, she engaged branding and design agency Date of Birth to work on a packaging design that “both respected the existing brand codes that Mingle had already established in market, while bringing their design expertise to improving the recognisability of brand assets on pack.”
Mingle continues to work closely with flexible packaging supplier Luminar, which produces the pouches, and Sonoco, which produces the canisters with labels already applied.
Evans explains that when she launched Mingle seven years ago, there was no brand in the pantry aisle that really inspired her. She didn’t want to create another 'daggy', heritage brand, she tells PKN, adding that she wanted her brand to be fun, have natural ingredients, speak to a younger audience, have personality and stand out on the shelf.
The business had reached a point though where it was time to bring in some experts and refresh the packaging to make it a little more refined and to provide a bit more continuity across ranges.
As Mingle continues to expand into different categories in the supermarket, the team wanted the brand assets to be more distinctive and recognisable across different categories on shelf.
Bring the new vision to life
Evans shares how Date of Birth helped her bring this vision to life: “Date Of Birth combed through our research and interviewed us as part of their Brand Discovery. This pioneered an overhaul of our packaging strategy and how we can position the brand as the ‘go to for instant flavour (that’s better for you)’. Suddenly we needed to not only bring the brand together cohesively but communicate the essence of speed (through colour and messaging) and reinforce the taste associations (through imagery and illustration),” she says.
Ollie Mann, general manager at Date of Birth chimes in, “Creating disruptive and distinctive brands is what we do, we feel like many of the brands in this aisle are more bland than they are seasoned…we wanted to shake things up. We took Evan’s passion and evolved the brand without compromising its existing brand equity.”
Evans adds, “Something that was quite contentious when I launched Mingle’s brand was there were no food or meal images on our packaging. I was very anti ‘what do the big guys do?’ This mentality has worked in my favour to innovate and do things differently. Consumers eat with their eyes and this key element of a delicious meal on pack, specifically in our Recipe Base category, was something that was advised that could add further value to consumers at shelf. It’s important as a business owner to not let your biases get in the way and be open to continue to evolve and grow quickly.
“That is how I have approached this packaging project – to keep the core of Mingle’s fun and personality sacred while being open to optimise the packaging with key elements that would appeal to customer’s shopping patterns,” she concludes.
Mingle’s rebranded packaging has started to roll out in the recipe base section of Coles and Woolworths over the last month and its seasoning range in the herbs and spices section of the supermarkets.
