Walk into a The Fresh Market store and the design brief writes itself. Florals at the entrance bloom into produce. Produce gives way to a butcher’s case of hand-cut kebobs and chicken roulades. The scent of fresh bread leads shoppers toward the bakery, and from there the store unfolds further into a candy island, a prepared-foods section, and an extensive whole-bean coffee selection.
“We are taste first and experiential,” explains Michelle Beck, director of merchandising, private label, at The Fresh Market. “What makes us unique is the size of our store, the layouts of our store, and really how we think about food and the journey we create for our guests.”
For years, the packaging failed to carry that same sense of discovery into the aisle. “The Fresh Market’s own-brand packaging was functional, but it had grown piece by piece over years and didn’t carry the sensorial conversation happening elsewhere in the store. As the retailer modernized nearly every other touchpoint of the brand, the gap between the in-store experience and the packaging became harder to ignore.
So the Greensboro, N.C.-based specialty grocer embarked on a redesign of its private brand spanning more than 700 SKUs across three quality tiers, executed in partnership with U.K.-based Equator Design, not because something was broken, but because it could be better.
A refresh from a position of strength
It was rising ambitions, not softening sales, that drove the decision to overhaul the packaging for The Fresh Market’s full portfolio of products. The grocer is in the middle of a broader brand evolution that has already touched the store environment, signage, and merchandising. Beck saw packaging as the final layer…