Louise Marsland (@Louise_Marsland)’s weekly pick of recent product, packaging, design and food launches:
- Global brand refresh for BLACK + DECKER
- Peppadew launches spicy addition, and
- Corobrik reimagines our cities
BLACK + DECKER revitilises brand
BLACK + DECKER has launched a new global brand identity for its consumer branded power tools, outdoor power equipment, and home products. New products and new campaigns will shortly launch to ‘provide energy’ around the brand and the new positioning across the global stage.
Black + Decker is a brand with a heritage of more than 100 years and the new identity seeks to revitilise with a simplified and more focused design. The repositioning also serves to market Black + Decker as a brand for the home.
Says trade marketing manager for Stanley Black & Decker, Mayan Desai, “While its roots are firmly planted in the power tool space, over the years there have been a number of additional categories that have contributed to the range of products, including cleaning and outdoor devices, and small kitchen appliances. As a result of this, the brand is deeply entrenched in and around the home. Ultimately, Black + Decker will help its product owners transform the place where they live into a home.”
Peppadew spices it up
Peppadew keeps on innovating, now that the brand has decided to embrace other shelf categories as well as its original pickles. The latest spicy range addition is an atchar in a jar, and follows upon the launch of Peppadew’s pasta sauces and pickled jalapenos and pickled onions last year.
The Peppadew Atchar range has four variants: Peppadew Mild Vegetable Atchar with Piquanté Peppers; Hot Atchar with Piquanté Peppers; Mild Mango Atchar with Piquanté Peppers; and Hot Mango Atchar with Piquanté Peppers.
Apparently a good atchar requires skill: the Peppadew mango atchar is pip-free and only non-fibrous mangoes are used, as they reportedly provide a far better texture and are easier to eat. And a good atchar is said to require a true lactic acid fermentation process to produce its unique and uniform taste experience. Therefore, all Peppadew Atchars are packed in lined, well-sealed drums to prevent any exposure to air making so that true lactic acid fermentation takes place. (Lactic acid is reportedly beneficial to digestion when consumed along with fermented vegetables).
Peppadew also claims that its atchar is lower in salt, has less oil than competitor brands and is fully pasteurised.
“We’re a nation big on flavour,” says Peppadew brand manager, Laurian Ovens. “Atchars — versatile and firm favourites in South African kitchens and an intrinsic part of South Africa’s culinary history — were a natural extension of the Peppadew product range. We are confident that our Atchar range will tick all the boxes by adding a refreshing sharpness to every dish they accompany whilst adding exotic new flavour dimensions.”
Designing a new city
Relooking at the urban landscape, tracking secretive wastelands and rehabilitating scarred urban vistas through ecological restoration are the themes that took top honours at the Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year Awards at the University of Johannesburg (regional competition).
Energy efficient mechanisms and interventions for a more sustainable environment were the focus of the annual awards.
Overall winner, student Harold Johnson’s entry, “The Dark City: Critical Interventions in Urban Despair”, describes rain harvesting and windmills to upgrade a building.
Johnson says he began the project as a journey by observing and documenting violence, abandonment and exodus within the inner city. In his research, he tracked statistics and investigated the residents of Johannesburg’s inner city and the city’s responsibility, as well as what happens when infrastructure falls away.
To reach his audience, he engaged contributors in photography, film research and sociology to determine what architecture means to the inhabitants.
Rachel Wilson received second prize for her thesis “Junkspace City, The Institute of Political Ecology”, a sensitive landscape project to rehabilitate scarred landscapes of junk space through ecological restoration.
Inspired by a wasteland in the ‘jungle’ of Alexandra on the banks of the Jukskei River, among an abandoned water treatment plant, she discovered sangomas, inyangas and Rastafarian herbalists living on the site and growing medicinal plants as a source of economic sustainability. Wilson found that the site unfolds as a hidden wasteland, secretive and detached from society.
Third place went to Zoe Goodbrand for her thesis entitled “The Connected City”. She has proposed revitalising Johannesburg’s natural environment through the establishment of the Braamfontein Spruit as a sub-urban greenway. The project is a cycle network that spans the full length of Johannesburg, from suburb to inner city.
National student winners will be announced in April 2015 after all the regional winners at the competing tertiary institutions have been awarded.
Shelf Life is a weekly column by Louise Marsland. Tweet new product, packaging and design launches to @louise_marsland 
or email her at louise.marsland at gmail.com. Want to sponsor Shelf Life? Contact us here.
Louise has written about the FMCG, media, marketing and advertising industry for over 20 years as a former editor of magazines AdVantage, Marketing Mix and Progressive Retailing, as well as websites Bizcommunity.com and FMCGFiles. She also edited the weekly Wednesday Media & Marketing Page for The New Age newspaper. She is currently the publishing editor of industry trendwatching portal, TRENDAFRiCA, for consumer insight, research and trends in Africa; a regular industry columnist and speaker; a consultant on content strategy; and contributing editor to Fast Company South Africa magazine, which has just launched in South Africa.
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