Lyndhurst, New Jersey, U.S.A.-based canned seafood company Season Brand, which specializes in sardine products, recently unveiled a rebrand of its logo and packaging, aiming to pay homage to its more than 100 years’ worth of history while simultaneously focusing on the future growth of the brand.
Releasing the updated logo and packaging at the 2024 Winter Fancy Food Show, which took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A. from 21 to 23 January, the company said reaching the milestone of 103 years after the company’s founding in 1921 – when Polish immigrant Isaac Epstein created the brand shortly after coming to the U.S. – marked the perfect time for a refresh.
Season products, which include canned sardines, mackerel, caviart, and kippers, are Friend of the Sea- and Marine Stewardship Council-certified. The company mostly sources from Morocco.
“It’s an exciting time for Season,” Season Marketing Manager Sara Kelly said. “We’re at this pivotal point where we really want to celebrate our heritage but also launch ourselves into the future and really be seen as the [top] canned fish brand in the U.S.”
Though the company has remained a steady presence in the U.S. market for over a century, the rebrand was actually borne out of a time of disruption for the business. Just over a year after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Season was acquired by Moroccan industrial wholesaler Mutandis, shaking up the structure of the longstanding brand during an already turbulent time.
However, another shakeup occurred at the same time that made the company’s structural shifts – and the rebrand that followed – serendipitous for Season.
Consumers were still mostly stuck at home a year after the pandemic and began cooking more frequently, experimenting with new ingredients they might otherwise have never found the time nor the desire to explore. As the months rolled by, many consumers, especially younger consumers, started realizing the benefits and the ease at which they could use canned seafood products to elevate their meals, posting their culinary creations on social media platforms such as TikTok.
While those trends gained a foothold, Season was conducting research to ensure its rebrand would retain the business of loyal consumers while also enticing new customers, with a focus on those who might be otherwise averse to sardines and other forms of canned seafood.
“For us, it’s all about education. In the past year or so, we actually did a really large consumer panel study, and we did some quantitative and qualitative research to understand the barriers to consumption,” Kelly said. “We’ve learned to educate our consumers about [the fact that our sardines] are a mild fish and very similar to tuna, but [have] so many health benefits like four times more omega-3s, four times less mercury than tuna, and 22 grams of protein. It really is a superfood in a can.”
Seasons has partnered with U.S. retailers Costco and BJ’s to try to get the word out about the heathiness and easy of use of canned seafood. Kelly said Season also plans to update its website with new photography and sardine recipes. Kelly said Seasons has also made trade shows a central part of its marketing strategy, and the brand plans appearances at the 2024 Natural Products Expo West and the Utopia Festival, with the goal of showing off the refreshed brand.
“It’s all about having our presence out there. We always want to have those in-person interactions with those we do business with,” Kelly said. “Since we’ve been in the business for so long, we always want to show we’re putting our best foot forward, showing off all the innovations we have to offer."
The biannual Fancy Food Show focuses on specialty food products, so Season made sure to prominently display its "caviart" offerings, which are black seaweed pearls that act as a vegan replacement for caviar, alongside its sardines.
Kelly said Season’s team finds that trade shows provide the face-to-face interactions necessary to drive their marketing message home – not only with consumers, but with retailers and distributors.
“In our case, we have multiple generations that are eating our canned sardines; we’ll have consumers in their young 20s coming up to us saying, ‘My parents and grandparents ate Season brand.’ It’s really cool for us to see that lineage,” Kelly said. “[We have] lots of really great innovations to come. This is really the beginning for us and a brand new start.”
Photo courtesy of Season Brand
