Natrually - Store Branding and Design

  • Lisa Ronan
Naturally approached FormRoom to craft their brand identity and design their UK store roll-out. From cheese to charcuterie, freshly baked bread to pasta, each of Naturally’s produce can be traced across its journey through Europe, from the markets of Madrid to the direct to the shopfront on London’s Holloway Road. Naturally offers quality produce with a transparent supply chain at an affordable price point.
Having found it frustrating to find good quality food at an affordable cost whilst knowing where your food is coming from and exactly what’s in it – Naturally’s owner set about resolving this. Naturally supplies its community with simple, fresh, delicious food.
Evolving the brand from logo conception through to full brand guardianship, product packaging and store design, FormRoom began by analysing the competitive environment and target market for this new brand, eventually identifying 3 Brand Pillars: Quality, Transparency and Community.
FormRoom began by analysing the competitive environment and target market for this new brand, identifying 3 Brand Pillars: Quality, Transparency and Community. Naturally’s brand purpose is crafted around its community as a local, reliable grocery store providing high quality products through their instore bakery, cheese and charcuterie counters alongside all other grocery essentials. The ‘Naturally Mine’ loyalty scheme is core to the brand community, which offers experience rewards such as a Supper Club or a Meet The Makers taster session.
FormRoom approached the packaging from insights gained in the market research stages. Responding to pain points such as reducing waste, transparency and freshness. We designed and produced bespoke resealable, reusable craft paper pouches with transparent windows to view product within, with a sealed freshness sticker. The Naturally stickers communicate the ingredients, the supplier and the instore packers name – creating a local connection between customer and the store team. The personalised freshness sticker act as an experience cue, building on brand engagement and communicates the authenticity in the transparent supply chain. FormRoom created an ‘Unpackaged Zone’ with self-service dispensers for grains, cereals, pasta etc incorporated to reduce waste and encourage reusing pouches or jars
Taking the Brand Development through to the store design, FormRoom created a modular store blueprint. Starting with Holloway Road we applied the Brand Pillars of Quality, Transparency and Community to our material choices throughout the fit-out and FF&E utilising sealed OSB, raw steel and a recycled composite plastic. All furniture is built in 500x500 sections which can be bolted together in different formations, responding to instore community events, new product launches or reactive to changing customer journeys. The existing red brick walls was retained and paired with white and green subway tiles and sourced pendant lighting. A striking visual brand cue was designed for the ceiling with suspended slatted wooden joists crossing and reflected within the furniture design. Within the Unpackaged, Wine and Bakery sections the joists drop from ceiling to floor carrying the feature throughout the store. A Community Table and Window Table encourage dwell time and interaction with staff who act as advisors, rather than sellers. An exterior cart takes the brand outside the store to offer seasonal tastings to locals.
FormRoom built the Naturally brand and store through Insight & Strategy, Branding, Packaging Design, Store Design, 3d Renders, Technical Drawing and a complete turn-key store fit-out.
FormRoom will be tracking footfall, physical journey and conversion alongside customers emotional response instore to inform future Naturally store design.