January 15, 2016 — CHEESE MARKET NEWS®
By Chelsey Dequaine
KENT, Ill. — In an effort to become more recognizable and to communicate company ideals to a broader range of consumers, Nuestro Queso will unveil a new logo and refresh its brand. Both will launch into Whole Foods this month stores followed by retail chains in the Midwest, Atlanta and the East Coast in February.
The new logo will replace the original that was created in 2009. Through consumer research, Arturo Nava, marketing director, Nuestro Queso, says the company found its signature logo was lost through readability.
“We have the best quality product on the market, but we didn’t look like it,” Nava says. “We needed to make sure our name is front and center and at the same time keep our signature flower consumers remember us for.”
The new logo shows a smaller flower, a larger company name and a green line symbolizing freshness. “The look conveys what we truly are in a clearer way,” he says.
Mark Braun, CEO, Nuestro Queso, says the new logo will better cross over into other market channels and consumer segments.
“Initially, we were so focused on first- and second-generation Hispanics,” Braun says. “We thought this would have a broader appeal. This is an evolution. As the company changes and evolves we try to meet the needs and understand we have to evolve as well.”
The idea behind the brand refresh was to tie all of Nuestro Queso’s product lines together with one identity, Braun says. The consumer is the company’s main driver.
“In order to be recognized as a premium brand, we needed to refresh the brand,” Nava says. “Our goal is to be the freshest, high-quality Hispanic dairy product out there. This gives us an opportunity to expand into the mainstream marketplace, becoming more relatable to the consumer, which will help us grow faster.”
The brand refresh on all Nuestro Queso products shows a blue sky, green grass, medals Nuestro Queso has won and recipes that can be made with the company’s cheese and dairy products.
“Most of our product line is 100 percent natural, so we wanted to convey that,” Nava says. “We included the medals so the consumers know the quality of the product they are buying.” The new logo and brand refresh process began in early 2015 with laying out the strategy and what the team wanted Nuestro Queso to be and represent, Braun says.
“There always is temptation to compete with price, but we didn’t want to do that — it’s not who we were,” he says. “We went the opposite way. We made a commitment to go rBST-free and now have that certification of all the milk we bring into our plant.”
Braun says the new logo and brand refresh tie together with other company initiatives, such as its SQF Level 2 certification.
Another initiative is penetrating the foodservice channel. Nuestro Queso has launched products such as its Queso Panela in a 5-pound wheel for food service/deli. Also known as queso de canasta (basket cheese), the company says Panela is a Mexican cheese made and formed in a basket mold.
Braun says innovation is the common concept that links Nuestro Queso’s initiatives, such as packaging efficiently, having investments to provide better products and being in front of consumer trends, and it’s innovation that ties back to what the company does in the factory.
“It makes it exciting — that’s what we want to be,” he says. “In the end, we created value for our retailers, we better communicate with our consumers and better reflect who we are as a company.” CMN
Reprinted with permission from the Jan. 15, 2016, edition of CHEESE MARKET NEWS®© Copyright 2016 Quarne Publishing LLC; PH: (509) 962-4026; www.cheesemarketnews.com