Whitby Seafoods is hoping to breathe fresh life into the frozen fish category with a new look and revamped product range.

The supplier’s updated range of scampi, cod and prawn products will be rolled out nationally through Ocado and branches of Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco later this month, and will be supported by a new website and social media campaign.

A key focus for the messaging will be quality. “Just like peas, frozen fish is fresher than ‘fresh’ fish,” claimed CEO Laura Whittle.

Overall frozen fish category sales have fallen 0.5% to £892m on volume down 2.9% in the 52 weeks to 17 August 2014 [Kantar Worldpanel].

Whittle added the rebranding was intended to play on the range’s provenance, particularly that of scampi’s status as a British langoustine.

“Lots of people think scampi is monkfish, but it’s the jewel in the crown of British seafood. We should be shouting about this,” she added.

Whittle said the company had a “huge opportunity” to contribute to the overall growth of a category and help attract new customers to scampi and frozen seafood.

“We felt there was a real lack of innovation regarding the communication of brand values within the category,” added Whittle, who drew influences from the likes of Gü, Dorset Cereals and Tyrrells for the rebranding.

“A lot of frozen seafood is impersonal, corporate and doesn’t engage with the consumer,” she said.

Sales of the Whitby brand stood at £7.9m in 2013 [Nielsen Scantrack October 2013].

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