John Crawshaw

Branding a chain of Yorkshire butchers

Challenge: How to communicate the quality of produce?

John Crawshaw is a chain of Yorkshire butchers and has always had a loyal, local customer base. However, with increasing competition from farm shops the owner John wanted to communicate more effectively the quality of his meat. So Kin were commissioned to brand his chain of shops, taking it through to shop facias, in-store graphics, promotional posters, vehicle livery and uniforms.

Solution: Expert butchers for food lovers

From our research we realised that John and his butchers personally select whole carcasses of meat, to be sure of its quality. Whereas competitors often buy in vacuum packed meat cuts.

So we put the owner John at the heart of the new identity and emphasised his personal sourcing by balancing the carcass on his shoulder. The identity shows his love of food with a more premium identity, with strapline ‘expert butchers for food lovers’. The identity uses a mix of traditional and non-traditional visual cues to appeal to existing and new customers with a traditional ribbon and non-traditional colour yellow to stand out.

Most of the meat is sourced locally, so we used photography of local scenes near the shops with key message, ‘what do you think of my warehouse?’. We created a sub-brand Seven Hills to make it clear which meat is local, the name referring to the fact Sheffield is surrounded by seven hills.

Result: Sales up over 25%

Sales increased by over 25% within 12 months and they now supply Sheffield United and Victoria Hotel, Sheffield.

“The re-branding of a company can be a daunting and stressful undertaking.  Kin helped to guide us through this process by understanding the needs of our business and providing us with a creative yet highly practical solution. Our new brand identity is both original and refreshing for a business such as ours.”

John Crawshaw, Founder, John Crawshaw Butchers