Albert Bartlett’s Scotty Brand has been tipped by new managing director Paul McLaughlin to become “bigger than Rooster” with plans to roll out into different categories and across the UK, freshinfo can exclusively reveal.
The brand will extend to major retailers next month after its relaunch in Asda in October 2010, starting with fresh produce lines before expanding across the supermarket aisles into the likes of fish, dairy and preserves next year.
This will be backed by “significant investment” that will include a £300,000 PR push from mid-October followed by a
£1 million campaign featuring TV advertising next year.
McLaughlin took up his position last month to lead what will become a standalone business in the Albert Bartlett portfolio, having spent four years as CEO of industry-led organisation Scotland Food & Drink after stints at Coca-Cola and Mars.
He is setting up his team and will be joined this month by newly appointed commercial manager Helen Wallace, former buyer at Haldanes Stores and Waitrose.
The brand was established in 1948 and relaunched last year with Kestrel potatoes supplied by Albert Bartlett followed by soft fruit from Perthshire grower Geoff Bruce in June and carrots from Aberdeenshire grower Philip Benzie from October.
The revamped Scotty Brand will become an umbrella for a full range of products that could include traditional Scottish lines such as salmon, jam and oat cakes as well as whiskey.
McLaughlin said: “My vision for Scotty Brand is that a consumer will walk into a retailer and there will be Scotty Brand products in every aisle, from fresh produce to whiskey. We can see Scotty Brand being bigger than Rooster in time so we are setting it up to progress in that manner.
“We are looking to establish a significant presence in Scotland across all the categories and across all the retailers and then next year, we will look to grow across the UK. We are absolutely committed to making this a proper brand.”
He added: “With the Rooster brand, Rooster is the variety of potato so brand extension is bound by that potato, but it demonstrates the potential and the positive reception that consumers give to well trusted brands in the category.
“Albert Bartlett started looking for a brand that could be broader. The Scotty Brand brings us the heritage of a brand that has existed since 1948 and with that, provenance and something that consumers can trust.”
McLaughlin describes the Scotty Brand values as “conventionally grown products at their best, Scottish grown or made that are good value, healthy and tasty, naturally produced and environment friendly”.
No comments yet