Seabrook Crisps is being relaunched next month with a new provenance focus and explicitly targeting mums.

The Bradford-based company hopes the revamp can turn around sales of the brand, which have fallen 22.9% year-on-year to £27.9m in a bagged snacks market up 6.6% [Nielsen 52 w/e 13 October 2013].

Seabrook completed a six-month consumer review described as the “most significant” in the brand’s 67-year history, and claims to have identified major growth opportunities.

As a result, it is launching a marketing push celebrating its heritage, values and quality, featuring the new strapline ‘Lovingly Made in Yorkshire’. The campaign is targeted at housewives aged 40-plus, who accounted for 40% of shoppers in the crisps category, and had a major influence on the behaviour of other consumers in their households, said Seabrook.

“The past six months’ work has given us clear direction to take the brand to the next level and make it a major player,” said Seabrook marketing director Kevin Butterworth, who joined the business from Kellogg’s last October as part of a new management team put together by former Vimto MD Jonathan Bye.

At the time of his appointment last May, Bye said he would maximise opportunities in the brand’s northern heartland. The company this week said there was still room for growth in its northern business, and that it was looking to gain listings and distribution across the UK.

Vegetarian brand Seabrook has also gained gluten-free accreditation from charity Coeliac UK, making it the latest in a string of established brands - including Warburtons and Heinz - to target the growing free-from market. The new-look Seabrook packs carry Coeliac UK’s ‘crossed grain’ symbol.

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