The perfect recipe for a rebrand

Like many founders, Toby and Elise Hilliam wanted to make something better. For them, it started with dinner. 

The couple set out to build a menu planning and smart shopping platform that understood consumer preferences, making it easy for users to plan, shop, and cook meals each week that met their needs. The result was MenuAid. 

The platform went live in 2021 and, within three months, had more than 3000 customers. As of August 2024, over 50,000 Kiwis and Aussies use the platform to plan their grocery shopping. 

MenuAid has now rebranded to Appetise. As well as a new name and new look, the company also has a new offering: behavioural insights that come from Appetise’s large consumer base. It has also taken on $4m pre-Series A capital from OIF Ventures and Icehouse Ventures in an oversubscribed round.

Insights ventures are hot right now, and Appetise offers a twist on the traditional approach of using datasets from focus groups or survey panels. Instead, it provides actual behavioural data from real grocery shoppers, all at an accessible price.

Prior to the launch and rebrand, Appetise tested a “basic” minimum viable product which Toby Hilliam says “validated pretty quickly that there was a critical piece of the puzzle missing for FMCG brands and that Appetise was incredibly well positioned to provide this.”

Businesses often struggle to identify the key occasions or motivations that drive purchases, Hilliam says. The Appetise Insights offering will help brands “understand who is buying their products and what shoppers do with food products after they are purchased,” he says.

“We all like to say we buy sustainably, but if we all had a comb through some of our cupboards, what would the truth be?” 

Hilliam says the Appetise Insights “is something that just has never existed, which is an awesome space for us to play in”. 

Seventy food companies are already taking advantage of the Appetise insights model.

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A facelift

Appetise’s new product demanded a rebrand, catering to both new and old consumers and brand partners to improve the whole food ecosystem. 

“We want to build a brand that helps consumers find delicious, appetising, fun, exciting, amazing meals and solves a real problem, [while also] helping brands understand who their consumers are, and why and when real shoppers use their products after purchase.”

The rebrand was led by innovation studio Previously Unavailable, which took on the project in part for equity. Previously Unavailable managing partner Simon Pound, who led the brand revamp, says the equity deal means Appetise’s goals become the studio's goals.

The challenge for Previously Unavailable was to turn the older, more functional MenuAid website into something less admin-like and appetising.

“What we wanted to do was capture the energy, fun and personality of the people on the team and in their community. And that’s why it’s been such a cool project,” Pound says. 

One of the rebrand concerns was that there was a lot of consumer loyalty to the MenuAid identity.

“We don’t want just to go, ‘surprise,’ and cause an upset,” Hilliam says. Instead, the Appetise team wanted their consumers to understand the “why” behind the change. 

For founders who fear a rebrand may lose them customers, Pound says don’t. 

“People are so sophisticated. They understand that brands change and identities develop as companies evolve. It’s normal.” 

However, he says when change is planned it is important to test first, especially when you have an extensive user base like Appetise. In most cases, a sneak peek and keeping them updated is enough, he says. 

“It can be as simple as saying, ‘Hey, as part of our mission to help make meal planning more appetising and less like admin, we’re changing up our website and our brand to the new name Appetise, and a new brand that’s more in the world of food and the great community of food lovers’.” 

For the Hilliams, the Appetise community became a key part of the rebranding process. The startup would turn to their Facebook community of 350-odd super users who are “incredibly vocal, loyal and passionate”, to get user thoughts and feedback. They also tracked digital performance to see how conversion and engagement were going. 

That said, throughout the feedback process, the Hilliams stayed true to their vision for Appetise: “We always take our consumers' feedback on board, but we know our business and know this change will be a massive improvement for them.”

With this mindset, Appetise could make use of the information they found insightful while being mindful of more superficial issues, such as people not liking a specific colour. 

“The big challenge with consumers is that not everyone loves change. There’s a very famous quote from Henry Ford about the car: ‘If you ask people what they wanted, they would say a faster horse’,” says Hilliam. 

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‍Investing confidence 

Throughout the rebranding process, Appetise ensured all stakeholders, including investor Icehouse Ventures, were kept informed. Icehouse Ventures first became involved with the startup 12 months ago during a previous funding round.

Icehouse Ventures principal Mason Bleakley says the firm was impressed with the evolution from direct-to-consumer only to an integrated B2C and B2B model. Having access to data from the source – rather than using claimed data or aggregating multiple sources – is a dream scenario that has unlocked a whole new value-generating avenue for Appetise and their investors, he says. 

The “novel piece of IP” and the traction that has followed demonstrate that Appetise is onto something impactful, Bleakley says.

A good investor should give founders the wiggle room to find opportunities, he says. “Every company should be constantly innovating.” 

Confidence in Appetise’s evolution and rebrand was maintained at a high level by regular shareholder reports provided by the company and commentary on its new business model. 

“They’re really great at communication, which has all been validated by their performance,” Bleakley says. 

Despite the facelift, Hilliam says the company values – commitment to customers, change for better and being stronger as a team – “still ring true, if not, in some instances, stronger”.

This is crucial, Pound says, because brands aren’t loved from day one; brands are things you build. 

A brand people love is “all the cool ways you turn up in the world, the nice things you do for people, the interesting partnerships you have, the value you provide as a company, and all the positive interactions they have with your team”, he says. 

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‍This story is part of the ‘Young Founders’ series brought to you by Icehouse Ventures.

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