Who We Are

Yes. Our Montreal office is staffed with food marketing experts who understand the cultural expectations of French-speaking Canadians.

For example, we never simply translate English copy to French; we always ensure that all marketing has cultural relevance.

Creating a brand and a name for a food product starts at $15,000, with the final cost depending on the complexity of the project.

What kind of factors will make this kind of work more expensive?

• Branding projects that need to work across multiple sub-brands – umbrella brands.
• International branding projects that need to work across multiple languages and/or cultures.
• Projects that need extensive research into the markets they will be operating in.

What can be done to minimize expense?

• You have existing research on your target market.
• You have an umbrella brand that dictates parameters for a sub-brand.
• You need a brand refresh, rather than development from scratch.

What is included?

• We define your brand story and your brand archetype. From there, we develop naming options based on the Nourish Food Brand naming matrix.
• We create a graphical treatment that typically includes a logo and a colour and font palette for your food brand.
• We create a Brand Book for your reference and future use for everything from your website to your packaging.

Food packaging typically costs around $13,000 for the base design, then approximately 30% of that cost for individual SKUs. This price is exclusive of custom photography and illustration.

I have a friend/spouse/kid who’s a graphic designer. They will do it much cheaper.

Food package design requires specific expertise; there’s far more to it than simply designing something that looks pretty. Unfortunately, desperate new clients approach us regularly with the same problem: a great product that is not selling as well as expected. Much of the time, the culprit is cut-rate packaging made by someone without a deep understanding of the industry.

Our designers live and breathe retail and grocery stores, including planograms, shelf blocking, and category conventions. We also understand regulations across the industry and know what it takes to launch your product in North America. As a result, our packaging design helps the product sell itself, earning rather than wasting money on design costs and listing fees.

Marketing activations that are not linked to a business outcome are a waste of money. As a result, marketing planning is an integral part of our work. The research and context that we build during this stage help us to ensure that your marketing budget is spent wisely.

But why do I need a marketing plan?

Imagine you’re building a house. A marketing plan is the equivalent of an architect’s blueprint.

So, how much does a marketing plan cost?

Social media management and content marketing services are typically charged as a monthly retainer. The minimum amount we need per month to create meaningful content, with a commitment for 12 months, is $12,000.

Social media management and content marketing services are typically charged as a monthly retainer. The minimum amount we need per month to create meaningful content, with a commitment for 12 months, is $12,000.

That’s expensive. I can get it for less somewhere else.

We do not believe you can purchase the same quality content for a lower price. We don’t market to consumers; we create brand relevancy for people. This means our clients win the race for attention in a world where low-quality, untested, and sometimes plagiarized culinary content is commonplace.

Our social content is created by specialists. Our recipes, for example, are tested twice by our culinary staff and are guaranteed to work. They are also guaranteed to be plagiarism-free. This kind of quality has created successes for our clients, including book publishing contracts and the removal of own-brand products by national retailers to be replaced by our client’s brand.

Our community management is done by food industry experts. We can represent any food brand in a social environment not only with warmth and humanity but also with deep knowledge that allows us to share specialist information with the relevant audiences, taking on the role of mentor and teacher.

As with most of our work, the cost of food photography increases as the complexity increases.

A simple overhead product shot on a white or solid colour background is less expensive than a recipe shot that needs full culinary development.

From the lowest to the highest, here are three examples of what prices typically are. Please note that these are guidelines only.

Option One

A basic shot of a product that needs no time from our culinary staff. Examples are bottled beverages or products that are ready to eat, like cookies or energy bars. Another example would be a simple shot for social use. The background will typically be one colour, and the styling is minimal. Post-production, i.e. colour adjustment, is included. The cost for a shoot like this is typically around $4,000 for a half-day in our studio for 3 – 5 products totalling 6 – 10 photographs.

Option Two

A simple, styled food shot. The client will supply the recipe, or the product is ready to eat. The product is prepared by our culinary staff and photographed using styling materials from our library. Post-production includes retouching. The starting cost is around $9,000 for a full-day shoot, encompassing 3 – 4 recipes created and styled, totalling 6 – 8 photographs.

Option Three

A fully custom shot that includes original “from scratch” recipe development, writing and testing. Custom styling to match a specific brand persona that may include prop rental and the building of a custom set. Full post-production and retouch. Expect the cost to begin at $11,000 for a full-day shoot, encompassing 3 – 4 recipes created and styled, totalling 6 – 8 photographs.

We shoot all our photography in-house, in a studio right next to our test kitchen. This keeps things affordable and accessible for our clients.

We get this question a lot. In our experience, when we worked client-side, ad and marketing agencies hated talking about money.

But here’s the truth: business runs on money, and we need budgets to do our work. Our work is to support our client’s business objectives through marketing planning and execution. At some point, we will need to talk about the money required to achieve that outcome, so we may as well do this at the beginning. And frankly, because of the quality of work we do and the value we offer, we’re perfectly comfortable being transparent about our pricing.

Building a sustainable business

We aim to build a business that offers value to our clients tomorrow, next week and in years to come. To do this, we work hard to attract the brightest talent in the food and marketing industry. We pay our staff competitive salaries and offer them a career, not just a job. This translates into better work and better outcomes for our clients.

Aren’t we scared of the competition?

No. We don’t compete on price. We’re not trying to be the cheapest; we’re aiming to be the best.

We use our unrivalled expertise in food, beverage and agricultural marketing to create positive and sustainable business outcomes for our clients and, by extension, our own business.

Sure thing. Some of them you can read on the front page. Others we’d be happy to share with you after we have signed an NDA.

We restrict the total number of food business startups we work with to 12 per calendar year, with an intake of one per month.

We do offer reduced rates to qualifying startups. Please contact us for details.

Nourish Food Marketing launched in 2009.

We are Canada’s only full-service marketing agency specializing in working with food and beverage clients. Our head office is in Canada, but we service clients globally.