Different brands North East regional foods body

A North East consortium aimed at developing the region’s food and drink sector launches on Monday, with an identity and brand strategy by design consultancy Different.

Taste North East England, backed by regional development agency One North East, is a collaboration between fine food group The Northumbria Larder, the North East Chamber of Commerce and Improve, the regional training skills council for the food and drink sector.

The consortium won the contract to deliver One North East’s economic and business strategy for the region last year. It subsequently put out a tender for the creation of a corporate identity and brand strategy.

Different, which has worked on the delivery of Dott 07, won a three-way unpaid creative pitch to design and produce identity, branding and implementation.

Different managing director Ben Quigley says, ‘The marque serves two purposes – to identify the corporate body promoting the food and drink sector in the region, but also to work as a consumer-facing stamp of authenticity showing a product’s roots in the North East. Given that we’re looking more and more at sustainable food models, locality is important.’

He adds, ‘Local food producers are still relatively small and don’t have the resources to develop trade or build markets, so they need a helping hand in these areas. It’s the fledgling companies that benefit most from this type of organisation.’

Different has used various graphic constituents to form a complete combined marque.

Fork and spoon graphics, that have been tilted, combine to create a bottle shape, while ‘Taste North East’ forms the bottle label.

The colour green has been used because of its wide-ranging connotations with freshness, sustainability and locality.

The marque, because it can be ‘disentangled’, can be used as a consumer badge or a corporate identity, says Quigley.

The identity is set to be rolled out across the packaging of consumer food and drink brands, corporate literature, events, exhibitions and training materials, as well as a website.

One North East has apportioned £2m of funding over the next four years to Taste North East England, but this is expected to be supplemented by other ‘commercial sources’.