In 2017, we took some time to just think about who we are as a business. We asked questions like:
- Who are we?
- What do we care about?
- What do we represent?
- How do we want to be perceived?
That was the beginning of the journey of our rebranding process from Agri-Tel Transportation to Agri-Fresh, Delivering fresh and healthy.
Come along for the ride and I will tell you the story behind our name, logo, and brand.
The Birth of a New Name:
When we slow down to look at what we do, we’ve always kind of been honed in on the southwestern U.S., California, and Arizona specifically, running fresh fruits and vegetables up to the Canadian prairie provinces. Basically, everything we did revolved around produce. We thought agriculture really resonated with us, and we liked the farming aspect as well, so we felt like the term “Agri” needed to stay, especially since we were able to retain part of our initial brand.
We also like to that keeping the first part from Agri-Tel, but it was when we were looking at the second component of the name that we thought about using ‘fresh’.
A comment was made about ‘delivering fresh and healthy’ and immediately our team know that was it! That term has really helped us clarify why we are here and what we do.
In trucking, it’s very common for companies to use ‘trucking’ or ‘transportation’ in their name. We wanted to be different. Agri-Fresh delivering fresh and healthy was the way we wanted to say transportation.
The Icon:
The icon was a very important ask from myself in the redesign. Basically, when I think of some of the great brands like Nike, they have the swoosh, so you don’t need to see the word Nike anywhere. You see the swoosh and you know that that is them.
You look at Harley Davidson, another iconic brand. When you see their bar and shield, you know right away that’s Harley Davidson.
So, when I think about the long-term vision, the goal for Agri-Fresh, was having an icon that people are going to see on our equipment running up and down the West Coast, and they won’t need to see the name, but they’ll know right away that it is those Agri-Fresh guys, and that they deliver fresh and healthy. So, it was very important to have an icon. The delivered end result, I couldn’t be happier with the icon itself.
The Tread Print:
I think the first thing that you’ll notice when you look at the logo, you can immediately see the outline of a tire tread print. So naturally, it’s the first hint that these guys might have something to do with transportation or trucking. So, that’s why the tread print resonated with us.
North & South:
When you look at the design of the tread print, the first thing you’ll notice, if you look down the sides, you can have two arrows pointing southbound. Basically, that is always the beginning of our journey. We’re based out of Manitoba, but, our core lanes are out of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. And, the first leg of our trip is always southbound, load positioning ourselves to pick up fresh produce.
Fresh & Healthy:
The next place when you focus, and the dominant part of the icon, is in the middle and you’ll see a dominant arrow pointing north, and then the lugs of the tread print had colours added in there. So, when I look at the logo I immediately see bananas, I see oranges, I think of strawberries, and I think of broccoli. I could go on and on with all different types of produce, but, basically, that’s what the colours mean. It is the freshness and the healthiness of fresh produce brings with it.
Communication:
From there, a critical component that we’ve learned over the years to be successful and to make sure that those commodities deliver on time fresh and healthy, is communication.
If we slow down to follow all the points that take place in just a single load, from the load coming from the customer into our logistics, the load planner, to the dispatch, to the truck that is selected, to communicating with the shipper for pick up, confirming the time, the pick up numbers, to the driver, to the customs border paperwork, and then to the customer receiving it. I could go on, but there’s easily 10 to 12 points of communication that for that need to take place for things to go right. And, if you trip up at all it can go wrong. So, when you see all the intersecting lines, to us that is the flow of communication, and our logo acts as a reminder of how critical communication always is.
Trucking is Tough:
Another thing that I see when I look at the logo is that it almost looks a bit dangerous, and you could hurt yourself with all those sharp edges. So, it has an edginess… I see a toughness to it.
If there’s one thing I know, is that when I think of fresh fruits and vegetables, it’s fun, it’s bright, it’s lively, and I and I love that. But, I also know that in the transportation that a lot takes place in the background; that’s the work that we do. There’s a lot of tough people. There’s a lot of tough situations that we have to work through. And we do have a certain attitude to us, we do have a certain edginess to us, we get the job done. We want those fresh fruit and vegetables on the table. We’re proud to take care of the dirty work in the background, to get the load there on time, fresh and free. So, it’s a tough industry. It’s a tough group of people at Agri-Fresh and I’m very proud of them.
Overcoming Obstacles:
The last component would be the tread print itself. I know when I look at it. And, I think to myself, the vision, the growth of Agri-Fresh, and that we’re just getting started. I know we can have a big impact. We want to deliver freshness, just millions of pounds, fresh produce into the Canadian market.
There are always reasons why it can’t be done. There’s always the obstacles that want to pop up and derail your plans. And, I just think to myself, those obstacles, those challenges, all you’re going to have is that tread print running up your back because we do not back down from those challenges, we embrace them. We’re going to figure out what we need to do to get past them. In my head, sometimes I just think when I run into challenges, I think, yeah, you’re going to have that tread print running up your back.
So, that’s the story of our name and logo. It’s very meaningful to me, it evokes passion in me.
I work to share those feelings and tell this story to any of the team, customers, new people coming on, especially the people that use us, to deliver fresh for them to our staff that are investing their time and efforts to drive this forward and make it happen.
I want them to share and also feel that passion, and harness the energy when you see an icon that represents something that has so much meaning.
Thank you very much for taking the time to learn about us. I really enjoyed sharing my feelings and the story of the Agri-Fresh rebrand.
Kevin Small, Founder & CEO
Ps. I would like to personally thank Relish Branding for their great work on this project. I couldn’t be happier with the final result.
To learn more about opportunities at Agri-Fresh, please head over to AgriFresh.ca/Drivers.
