Healthy Habits set on hearty growth

Couple this with the alarming rise of childhood obesity and a horizontally expanding population, and it’s no surprise that ‘healthy’ food options are the flavour of the menu in food courts around the country. To win the battle for the buck in this fiercely competitive environment, there’s one final piece of ammunition required, which has nothing to do with what’s on the menu and everything to do with the brand.

Innovative branding, positive messages and quality product materialise at Healthy Habits sites across the country. This is proving to be the winning recipe among local food court consumers – with focus groups proving that the Healthy Habits brand captures the attention of 97 percent of food court customers.

Healthy Habits healthy eating franchise, the brainchild of Katherine Sampson (pictured right), was launched late 2004 and has proven itself to be one of the fastest growing new retail brands in the country – expanding to 25 sites across Queensland, Victoria, Sydney and Cairns in one year. With a solid franchise system in place, in just one year the business is turning over a more than healthy amount of $14 million – with projected earnings to the tune of $17 million as more sites roll out over the coming months. When this information is coupled with the fact that Healthy Habits operates within an industry that is worth a conservative $4.2 billion per annum, the inherent potential in a Healthy Habits franchise is obvious – 442 billion sandwiches were sold in Australia in 2004.

Simplicity and honesty are the key to the Healthy Habits food and beverage franchise brand. The bright designs and unpretentious messages of Healthy Habits give the brand the edge over its competitors in the battle for attention in a crowded takeaway food industry. The Healthy Habits brand communicates a simple, unadulterated approach to its customers – eat well and feel good. While most competitors advertise using pictures of food, Healthy Habits has veered away from the common formula with a branding strategy that expresses the needs of a growing market of health-minded consumers in Australia.

Fresh colours, clever point-of-sale techniques and a simplistic logo that’s easily relatable are all part of the company’s successful branding direction. The promotion of healthy living through direct and positive design speaks consumers’ language, promotes healthy living, appeals to a broad market and directly reflects consumer needs.

Capitalising on an unexplored niche in the rapidly growing health food industry, the Healthy Habits franchise is flourishing at a rapid pace. Behind Healthy Habits’ success is a strong marketing team, an invaluable resource to any new company looking to become a leader in the industry. Under the direction of Jess Logan, former national brand director of Boost Juice, Healthy Habits has expanded by 480 percent since its launch just one year ago and is well on its way to becoming Australia’s leading sandwich franchise.

The booming health market has proven to have created a number of opportunities of late within the retail food market. From juices and smoothies to healthy snacks and cereals, ‘healthy’ eating is not only beneficial for the body but the bank balance, with many brands rising to dominate specific markets. Logan saw a gold mine in Healthy Habits – the opportunity to dominate the fresh sandwich category.

“Not only is the health market desperately waiting for a brand to deliver truly nutritious healthy food, but this is the only food choice I can think of that honestly appeals to everyone. Consumers start eating sandwiches from the day they can chew up until the day they can’t. Sandwiches attract such an unbelievably broad market. It’s an incredibly rare and lucrative opportunity,” Logan says.

Logan’s successful efforts with the Boost Juice brand and her experience within the retail health market meant she was the ideal candidate to develop a brand that would create enough cut-through to stand out in the already saturated fast food market and drive the business towards its goal of becoming Australia’s largest and most recognised sandwich bar.

She realised that while Healthy Habits’ product quality, service offering and distribution would all be integral in achieving the objective, it would be the development of a strong, cutting edge brand strategy that would be primarily responsible for setting the business apart in a retail food market that is currently dominated by independent sandwich operators and saturated with fast food brands.

Above all, the Healthy Habits brand is different. In a food court full of brands that use food visuals to draw consumers in (fruit, vegetables, cooked meals, etc) the Healthy Habits brand is designed to have a ‘wow’ factor. It’s bright, simplistic, colourful and really has nothing to do with the food it sells and everything to do with how it makes you feel when you see it. It uses a happy face to draw people in, it makes you feel good and it’s different. What’s more, consumers are proving to want to be a part of that.

For more information visit www.healthyhabits.com.au.