Merit Functional Foods came to us in late 2019 with a challenge. They had all the tools to launch one of the world’s leading plant protein companies save one critical piece: a brand with merit.

The launch schedule was as ambitious as their mission.

Merit Functional Foods planned to publicly unveil the new brand at one of the largest B2B dietary supplement, functional foods, and sports nutrition trade shows in the world: SupplySide West.

The Merit team shared MarketPlace’s belief that in order to develop a brand with impact, a sound strategy must precede it. We immediately initiated our Discovery phase with an Ideation Session, where we began to set the foundation for Merit’s brand strategy and identity.

Merit Brand Identity

Merit’s brand, coincidentally, grew right alongside its facility.

Merit spent 2020 constructing its production facility, and we spent 2020 constructing their fully realized brand, from building connections with trade media to adding versatile new elements to their brand identity.

Great stories don’t tell themselves.

Within just a few months of their official launch, Merit was already receiving enormous investments and securing partnerships with some of the largest companies in the food and beverage industry. They needed help telling these great stories, and MarketPlace had the connections with the leading food and beverage trade publications that ensured that they were heard.

Trudeau announces financing for plant protein plant

Published Food + Beverage

Merit Functional Foods Building Cutting-edge Facility

Published Food + Beverage

Nestlé, Merit and Burcon Announce Partnership

Published Food + Beverage

Evolution. Growth. Connection.

In its inaugural year as a company, Merit is constantly evolving and growing. To assist in that growth, we developed a website that matches their ingredients: clean and easy to digest, ensuring that the message is heard and that it’s easy for their target audience to learn what they need and to take action.

As the company continued to grow, they needed to make more connections with a key audience to support this growth: growers themselves.

Merit knows that the Canadian farmers that grow their pea and canola are an integral part of their story. We helped Merit build connections with growers through social media and physical signage.

In a few months time, when you start noticing “canola protein” on product labels or that your pea protein products taste significantly better, you can thank Merit Functional Foods. We applaud their admirable efforts not just to make a better plant protein but also to take major, measurable steps toward sustaining the health of our planet (and us).

Theirs is certainly a story of merit, and one we’d love to tell again and again as it proves our mantra: when you have a solid brand built upon sound capabilities, the industry will take note.