Heinz - Cowan

HEINZ

How to Create Impact with Heritage Packaging Graphics

Some brands shape industries and Heinz’ iconic keystone is one of the most legendary and enduring packaging mnemonics (shapes) of all time. When it comes to shapes that people can recognise without seeing the word on pack, only Coca Cola and McDonald’s are the in the same league. Heinz has been gracing supermarket shelves the world over since 1869 and has long been a pantry staple. Generations of consumers trusted Heinz for its quality, but the world of packaging design communication and the grocery store landscape had shifted. Shoppers were placing greater emphasis on nutrition, ingredients, chilled soups and flavour innovation, while new competitors with bold offerings and contemporary designs were crowding store shelves.

Heinz turned to us as both a brand identity creative agency and pack design expert as they felt they needed to do more than just freshen up the pack communication. Our philosophy is very much grounded in strategic clarity, creative courage, and commercial impact. We believe packaging design is more than decoration, it’s an essential tool that connects people to brands in a meaningful way, easing the path to purchase by creating distinctive packaging communication that stands out and communicated important messages clearly.

We started the journey with Heinz with market research to uncover necessary information about potential and existing customers and their expectations for modern food brands. We explored different options for packaging styles and product formats, assessing regulatory requirements, environmental impact, and design decisions that would deliver a lasting impression. We also audited adjacent categories and key competitors to understand where pack communication was evolving in terms of visuals and copy.

The design brief was to revitalise Heinz’s brand identity whilst preserving authenticity and essential (to be determined) heritage cues. Using the creative process, we rebuilt the visual elements of the brand around its most iconic asset — the keystone. The keystone and uppercase wordmark were a key point of design focus and were refined through an iterative process of packaging mockups and dieline templates, to a point where we knew it needed to become the hero of the brand’s identity system. These elements provided strong brand recognition, while allowing room for ancillary design elements to communicate freshness, joy, and quality.

The final design unified Heinz’s product range and gave the brand a powerful tool to stand out in a competitive department store or grocery store environment. It was an interesting project because it was a case in point that good package design isn’t about flashy graphics, it can be about the connection of form, function, and heritage. The refreshed brand identity became both a design evolution and a strategic pivot point for the brand, as the new design’s launch became a key communication focus for all account managers with the trade partners across the business.

The result exceeded all expectations and achieved a 20% year-on-year sales increase and a record-breaking 51 million cans sold in a single month. The key to the success of the repositioning, was the gentle, evolutionary approach to the redesign. With the enhanced size and prominence of the keystone and wordmark and the introduction of recipe ingredient visuals on the front of pack, we evolved the packaging in a relevant and meaningful way, connecting consumers from the past to current category communication mechanisms, thus also driving a new wave of brand trial and retrial.

Who put the fun in spaghetti? Heinz did!

Following on from the success of the phase 1 relaunch, Cowan was invited to work with Heinz to create a consistent but flexible brand identity for its pasta portfolio. Each product’s packaging needed to highlight nutrition and consumer trust, while still belonging to the Heinz family. We used bold colours, contemporary designs, and unique shapes to differentiate each SKU, but always tied them back to the keystone.

This packaging design process demonstrated one of our core values: creative courage balanced with consistency. As a creative agency, we believe brand systems should be adaptable — strong enough to unify, but flexible enough to express individuality. By leveraging innovative materials, visual elements, and intricate designs, we produced final designs that resonated with older adults as well as younger families, showing how the clear packaging hierarchy can enable creativity that resonates across generations.

Everyone loves a Farmers Market

For Heinz Ketchup’s Baltic launch, Cowan’s creative process focused on bringing a quality story to life through packaging design. Heinz’s tomatoes weren’t ordinary — they were closer to nature than any other brand. By anchoring the packaging design concept in provenance, we expressed “grown not made” with product images of tomatoes still on the vine.

We maximised the pouch format’s potential with bold colours and clear visuals, creating a packaging style that was instantly recognisable. This final design aligned perfectly with Heinz’s brand identity, delivering trust, authenticity, and consumer connection on store shelves.

Grown not made.

Design philosophy in action

What unites all these Heinz projects is Cowan’s design philosophy. We don’t just design product packaging — we build strong brand identities that last. Our creative agency approach combines strategic thinking, innovative materials and environmental awareness with the artistry of our professional designers.

Strategic clarity ensures every design decision is based on market research, consumer insights and the brand’s identity. Creative courage challenges categories with bold ideas, whether through unique shapes, text prompts, or custom packaging orders. At the end of every design project or brand repositioning, commercial impact will the measure by which our packaging design projects are judged — simply put, it’s the difference they make on store shelves reflected through sales results.

Conclusion

From ketchup to soup, the Heinz packaging refresh demonstrates the transformative power of brand identity expressed through packaging design. With great ideas developed collaboratively, bold colours, and effective packaging design, Cowan led a redesign that not just improved visual elements, but formed the basis of a comprehensive new brand growth strategy.

These projects also demonstrated that packaging design is a powerful tool for creating shopper connection, with new and existing consumers and making a lasting impression on store shelves. For Heinz, the result was renewed brand recognition, stronger commercial performance through a high-impact packaging design that elevated their brand’s identity with a new generation of brand lovers.