Food with roots. Does a good brand make good food taste even better?

You’d think so, wouldn’t you. After all, food and drink is the new intellectual experience culture, not just Instagram eye candy. But in a world where vegan is the new normal, organic goes without saying and a weekend just wouldn’t be a weekend without a trip to a farmers’ market, how can people who are actually creating great whole food use their brand to cut through the competition and get their audience hungry for more?

Developing a brand for two street fooders who were putting down roots and opening a restaurant together got us thinking about the whole issue of brand sustainability in the food world. Brands everywhere are evolving to be more ethical, more empowering — consumers just expect brands to be sustainable. Especially their food brands. A great meal is about far more than what’s on the plate.

Today’s consumers have a consciousness about what they’re eating and where it’s from, they’re looking for connections with brands that share their values and ethics. It presents an extraordinary opportunities for food entrepreneurs who understand agriculture, community and the power of real, local food.

After all, food is more than just food. Food connects us to our past, to people, to places. It’s our common ground. Good food should take you on a journey.

Being based in Jersey gave our clients an automatic step up into the world of connected food. An island nine miles by five, Jersey’s built on food heritage. It owes its landscape, culture and economy to the foundations of food and its local crops, apples, cider and Jersey Royals. Today, it’s a connected community of producers from land and sea, a culinary hub where people can join the journey of local food and play a part in that purpose.

Barrow needed to bring everything together, the provenance of its restaurant home at the medieval country estate Samarès Manor, the earthiness of local farming and connect it all to a clean, sleek food experience. For Chris and Gemma, it was about having a purpose and how that purpose ran through their story. Their aim was to bring people together, creating a casual restaurant experience that reflected their love and enthusiasm for nature and their island mixed with their desire to connect customers with their family of like-minded local producers, growers and suppliers. The access to fresh garden produce from the Manor’s estate needed to resonate through their brand and show their real authenticity from the first day of trading.

Barrow is a vision that feeds a virtuous cycle of a new food system that includes sourcing, serving and sharing good, clean and delicious local food. We designed their brand to reflect that farm-to-fork trend with a circular brand, a stamp of quality and a moral compass which brings products and provenance together.

Classic, elegant but not too on-trend, the brand combines the heritage of their Samarès Manor location with their modern vision. Barrow is proudly local, home-grown and part of their surrounding community so their product — casual comfort food with a clean conscience — deserved communications that reflected their integrity. Branding that’s tactile, thoughtful, sensory and nurturing connects people to Barrow’s ideals and acts as a rallying call for an honest, home-grown and transparent approach.

When we’re designing a tactile brand, we view it as a tool kit of ingredients — we want our clients to take ownership and use it as a stamp of quality and provenance in all they do, from menus to merchandise. Design cues in the brand champion some of the hero products and heritage of Samarès Manor, cementing the authentic produce available a few steps away from their kitchen. Hand-drawn assets give a bespoke edge and work as a complement to Barrow’s USP — direct access to the Manor house gardens where their food comes from orchard to fork.

Simple wins every time. By keeping the concept simple, Barrow can ensure their team and customers gather around their brand’s purpose and feel proud of what it means for them, their lifestyle and the island. After all, the best food brings people together.