John Crawshaw Butchers
Family butcher John Crawshaw wanted to grow without compromising the loyalty of its existing clientele. So it used design to close the gap between presentation and product quality and provide a platform to expand into other quality foods.
Background
John Crawshaw Butchers is an award-winning, second generation family butchers based in South Yorkshire.
The business comprises three shops, the largest in Stocksbridge, near Sheffield, and a wholesale business supplying local businesses including pubs and restaurants.
In 2006, turnover stood at £2.5m but annual growth was relatively modest and the business was eager to find new ways to grow.
Problem
‘There was a lack of professionalism in the way we presented ourselves,’ company owner and manager John Crawshaw admits. ‘The product was good, and we were doing many positive things, like local sourcing, but we weren't communicating this effectively.’
Crawshaw heard about Designing Demand through his local Business Link advisor and in spring 2007 he began working with Design Associate Ellis Pitt after joining the Generate service. They began with a one-day session focusing on the business's strengths, its target market and ambitions.
Pitt says: ‘One of the first steps was to clarify what made John Crawshaw stand apart from other family butchers. It quickly became apparent there was a mismatch between the presentation and product quality.’
Crawshaw agrees: ‘We had little more than a colour scheme to differentiate cuts of meat: not a brand, more a presentational style that evolved by instinct.’
There was also potential to grow the customer base, which spans the local community, and local trade customers such as restaurants and hotels.
In addition, Crawshaw had a longer term plan to develop a food hall-style deli outlet extending the product range beyond meat into a variety of other locally-sourced produce. The design solution had to cover all these bases. But there was a fundamental challenge: appeal to potential new customers, particularly young supermarket shoppers, without alienating the long-standing existing clientele.
Response
Pitt worked closely with Crawshaw on a design brief that formed the criteria to select a design agency and then help them develop the brand.
Pitt says: ‘Like many business owners, John Crawshaw is a sophisticated and discerning consumer of brands himself, but he hadn’t converted that knowledge into an understanding of the role design could play in his own business.
‘It was important to introduce the business to the strategic benefits of better design without alienating them with jargon or design speak.’
Pitt invited three design companies to present credentials, but also helped manage Crawshaw's expectations about what would be involved, both in terms of cost and the time required to oversee the design process.
‘It's relatively easy to sell the concept of working with a designer,’ he explains. ‘But it's essential for the business owner to enter this with eyes open. I estimated the likely investment required would be around £30,000, plus John would need to invest at least half a day of his time each week.’
Strategic branding and design consultancy Myles Consulting was selected.
‘What you're looking for is mutual trust,' explains Crawshaw. ‘You need to be able to trust their design expertise, but they need to trust your ability to give them the information and instruction they need to do a good job.’
Fiona Myles says: ‘We saw that we needed to communicate that this was a premium business, and that we had to emphasise the meat was locally sourced. John actually selects the carcasses himself, but the business wasn’t making enough of that.’
Three potential design solutions were tested with regular customers. This was essential to understand how radical the re-branding could be without alienating more conservative customers.
‘We expected younger consumers to be open to more extreme ideas but it turned out that they - like the older, more traditional consumers - preferred a more conservative design,’ he says.
The new corporate identity was launched in November 2007. It features the company name in a traditional font set against a contemporary yellow background. This is accompanied by an iconic representation of a butcher carrying a carcass, and the strap line: 'Expert butchers for food lovers'. A Seven Hills sub-brand underlines the local provenance of the meat.
Branding extends across all labels, promotional posters and hoardings. In each shop, meanwhile, a prominent wall has been covered in a floor-to-ceiling photograph of a well-known local scene and the strap line: 'What do you think of my warehouse?' This theme is carried through to carrier bags and could be extended into merchandise - recipe cards, sauces and even carving sets. A further identity replacing the meat carcass with a sack of flour has been prepared for the deli business.
Impact
John Crawshaw Butchers' turnover in 2008 rose to £3.2m. ‘Sales to the trade have risen £750,000, and the new image has helped open doors with larger corporate clients than those we were dealing with before,’ says Crawshaw. ‘We now supply Sheffield United and the Royal Victoria Hotel, Sheffield.’
Although current economic conditions mean the food hall plans remain on hold, the new design leaves the business well-positioned to expand when the time is right, Crawshaw adds: ‘A new shopping centre is being developed in Sheffield, and we are looking at the possibility of opening a fourth outlet there, too.’