The Afiouny family have been perfecting their recipe since 1925.
The ambition was to go from a family shop to Australia's biggest grocers. The product was already good enough for that. The brand was not, and the two problems look identical from the inside.
What actually changes when you move into major retail
A brand that works in your own shop is doing a different job from one on a supermarket shelf.
In your shop, the staff explain the product, the smell does half the selling, and the customer already decided to come. On a shelf, the packaging is alone. It has about a second, next to competitors with national marketing budgets, in front of someone who has never heard of you.
Most family businesses under-invest here because the product genuinely is better. That's precisely why it stings: being better isn't visible at a distance.
What we changed
We rebuilt the digital presence, including a new website and online catalogue, and paired it with professional food styling and photography.
The photography deserves the emphasis. For food, styling is not decoration, it's the product demonstration. It's the closest a shelf or a screen gets to the smell of the shop.
What we didn't change
The 1925 part.
The easy mistake in this kind of rebrand is deciding that "sophisticated" means erasing the family. It's backwards. The heritage is the one thing the national competitor cannot copy or buy.
The brief was to bring a sophistication on par with the offering, not to make NutRoasters look like a bigger, blander company. Those sound similar in a meeting and produce completely different work.
What to take from it
Scaling exposes the brand, it doesn't break it. The gap was always there. Retail just makes it visible.
Photography is a bigger lever than logo. For food especially, most of the perceived quality shift comes from how the product is shot.
Protect the specific thing. A family name and a date are assets, not clutter. Modernise around them.
Frequently asked questions
When does a family business need a rebrand? Usually when the distribution changes. Moving from your own premises to retail, wholesale or online puts the brand in front of people with no context, which is a different job.
Is a new logo the main part of a rebrand? Rarely. For products, photography and packaging usually shift perception far more than the mark does.
Should we hide that we're a small family business? No. It's the thing larger competitors can't replicate. Modernise the presentation and keep the origin.
How long does a retail rebrand take? It depends on scope, and packaging print lead times often set the real timeline rather than the design work.
See the project: NutRoasters. We work with food and retail brands on identity, packaging and photography. Get in touch.
Written by Omar Aziz, Grid Agency. Last updated 10 September 2026.