Hellmann’s wins ‘Food Brand of the Year’ Grocer Gold Award

It was an evening of highlights, with Unilever also winning Technology Initiative of the Year as part of a joint entry with Nectar360, and Sure being shortlisted for ‘Personal Care Brand of the Year’ for their new 72-hour Nonstop Protection antiperspirant.

Cooking up a Gold award

The Hellmann’s team won their award in recognition of their latest ‘Cook Clever, Waste Less’ campaign. As household budgets tightened, Hellmann’s embarked on a multichannel push that aimed to make money-saving tips and recipes accessible to all. It launched a ‘Use-Up Day’ campaign with Tesco in April 2022, encouraging shoppers to use up leftovers in a weekly meal, followed by the launch of its Fridge Night app, which offered consumers four weeks of free recipe content.

Here, we unpick the brand’s winning recipe: purpose-led campaigns, impactful innovations and market winning performance.

Make taste not waste

Hellmann’s want to be a force for positive behaviour change, adding to the enjoyment of food, while inspiring people to be more resourceful. Tackling food waste has long been central to the Hellmann’s brand. In fact, it’s a natural fit. Sandwiches and salads are the top dishes that use mayonnaise, and they also happen to be made with some of the most wasted food ingredients, including bread, potatoes, chicken, tomatoes and salad leaves¹.

In 2022, Hellmann’s accelerated and evolved its food waste mission in light of the cost-of-living crisis to raise awareness with shoppers that reducing food waste is not only better for the environment, but it can also help household food budgets to go further too.

Analysis by WRAP and Hellmann’s revealed that food waste costs UK families approximately £780 a year². The study also revealed that respondents wanted to be more resourceful with their food, but they often didn’t know where to start, with 37% of people in the UK unsure where to find helpful information when it comes to reducing food waste³.

These insights were shared with the UK’s biggest retailer, Tesco, who Hellmann’s partnered with on a new food waste initiative designed to help the average family save £260 a year on food⁴. The ‘Use-Up Day’ campaign launched in April 2022, encouraging the nation to cook a meal once a week using up food they already have in their kitchen.

Building on 2021’s ‘Cook Clever, Waste Less’ campaign which included a Channel 4 TV programme featuring Prue Leith, 2022 saw the brand launch a free family-friendly digital app called Hellmann’s Fridge Night, designed to help the nation reduce food waste and save money each week. The app was developed to provide inspiration and practical ways people can be more resourceful with the food they have at home, providing practical tools and simple tips to help the UK reduce food waste by up to 33%. There have been 14,000 Fridge Night app downloads, with 11,000 completed challenges, and so far, the Fridge Night Community has saved an incredible 10 tonnes of food - the equivalent of 43.7 tonnes of CO2.

“Hellmann’s approach to food waste is right on message for one of the big challenges we face,” said one judge.

Impactful innovation

Hellmann’s launched a range of exciting innovations in 2022, to help consumers add further flavour and excitement to their everyday meals and leftovers. These included Hellmann’s Gravy Flavoured Mayonnaise, Chilli Charger Mayonnaise, and Coronation Mayonnaise, the latter paying homage to the royal family by reinventing the summer sarnie classic ahead of the Platinum Jubilee. Additionally, the brand relaunched their range of salad dressings and added two new flavours to the line-up – Blue Cheese and Garlic & Herb.

Market winning performance

Hellmann's is the biggest selling mayonnaise brand⁵ worldwide, and in the UK currently holds 51.5% market share⁶. Mayonnaise overtook ketchup to become the biggest condiment in the UK in 2022, with Hellmann’s core mayonnaise growth of 17.3%⁷ showing that purpose and profit can align. With a presence in 28 million households across the UK, the brand is in a unique position to identify consumer trends ahead of the game, bring innovation and drive value in the category.

Technology Initiative of the Year

As part of a joint entry, Unilever picked up another award in the Technology Initiative of the Year category, for their work with Nectar360.

Charlotte Murphy, Senior Digital & Data Lead at Unilever, said: “It was incredible to be recognised for our work in this space with Nectar360, at Unilever we’re always looking for new ways to collaborate with our retail partners to advance media capabilities and jointly create the environment for best-in-class consumer experiences. Our partnership with Nectar has enabled Unilever to serve consumers with more meaningful and relevant content.”

Congratulations also go to Sure, who were shortlisted for ‘Personal Care Brand of the Year’ for the launch of the brand’s biggest upgrade to antiperspirant technology in 30 years. Sure’s Nonstop Protection – a ground-breaking new antiperspirant that took 10 years to develop - succeeded in turning around the fortunes of a stagnant UK deodorants category in 2022. It provides 72-hour sweat and odour protection and includes the brand’s unique MotionSense™ technology, which reacts as users move to release bursts of fragrance, at the moment it is needed most. 72% of those in the brand’s clinical trial of ‘movers’ agreed the new antiperspirant gave them the best sweat protection ever⁸.