Ginsters' Bloom rebrand turned 'emergency food' fame into £133.5M and 14.9% sales growth
Bloom's 2023 identity overhaul reframed Ginsters' Cornish provenance; 2024 brought 14.9% sales growth to £133.5M, 51% volume growth and a 50% category share.
What was changed
By 2022 Ginsters, founded in the late 1960s, had a perception problem: the Cornish pasty brand was highly salient but evoked hangovers, service stations and 'emergency food' rather than quality. Marketing director Sarah Babb says the reality of its quality 'was just not understood', with poor-quality associations shaped by legacy distribution channels rather than the food itself — a dissonance that had become a commercial barrier to recruiting new customers.
The fix, launched in 2023, was a full identity overhaul by London agency Bloom that deliberately kept the equity: the wordmark barely changed beyond slight lettering tweaks and the addition of 'Est 1967'. The visible change was illustration — the dark, pastoral rural scene gave way to a contemporary layered Cornish world of landmarks and local characters, grounded in the company's archives from vintage slogans to delivery vans, alongside updated food photography, typography and a conversational tone of voice balanced between joy and trust.
The commercial result followed: in 2024 Ginsters was named one of Britain's fastest-growing grocery brands with sales up 14.9% year on year to £133.5m, volume sales rose 51% in the months after the rebrand, and the brand reached a 50% share of the UK pasties and slices market, tracked through Kantar equity measures alongside penetration and share. The parallel national campaign Taste the Effort reached 93% of UK adults and helped recruit over half a million new households, according to the Samworth Brothers Annual Review 2023–24.
The refreshed identity also unlocked portfolio moves aimed at younger shoppers: a Pockets range of handheld pastries in 2023, a limited-edition Heinz Beanz & Cheese slice, and a Walkers flaming-hot sausage roll collaboration sold exclusively on TikTok Shop that sold out in under eight hours.
Why it worked
The rebrand targeted a precisely diagnosed problem — salience without meaning — rather than awareness the brand already had.
It kept the distinctive asset and evolved everything around it, protecting a loyal base while courting new consumers.
Results are verifiable and specific: £133.5m sales, 14.9% growth, 51% volume, 50% category share, Kantar-tracked equity lifts.
The repositioning compounded beyond packaging into portfolio innovation and channels like TikTok Shop for younger buyers.
What can be applied
Heritage brands change by evolving the story, not erasing it: keep the logo, redraw the world around it, and measure penetration and share — not just awareness you already had.
Aftermath
Samworth Brothers' insight team won an AURA ROI Award for the research behind the brand strategy, and Bloom consolidated its FMCG position with similar legacy-brand work for Robinsons Squash and Diageo's single malts. Babb says the work is not done: the brand's goal is to keep building its memory structure, now that its distinctive assets go far beyond the logo.