CERES Fair Food’s boxed produce delivery business is the enterprise arm that funds over 50 remarkable environmental initiatives at CERES Park, the site of the old Brunswick tip which was reclaimed as an environmental park in the early eighties. Long before organic farming and the climate crisis were mainstream concerns.
CERES doesn’t follow any of the conventions of modern company origin stories.
There is no founder. It was different groups reclaiming this urban space to grow food. A group of elderly Maltese residents growing garden plots, Brunswick families keeping chickens, and passionate permaculture folk experimenting with better and gentler methods of farming.
Then the School For Nature Climate started. A remarkable initiative that has helped hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren learn about the climate crisis and how we must love and protect the Earth.
I could keep listing the other initiatives of CERES, but I won’t because that was CERES' biggest issue, there was no succinct or singular way of articulating what they do and who they are.
After a couple of false starts with other brand and business strategists, they called me (The Thought Police) in to find and articulate their brand and purpose.
Rather than conducting creative sprints in a boardroom. Marketing manager Isabelle Fouard and CERES Fair Food GM Chris Ennis suggested we just work alongside people in the business. Experience the early morning packing floor in the warehouse, join the overnight buyers, the delivery drivers, sit down with the operations and customer service teams.
So what would usually be a rapid creative sprint, digging up audiences, cultural tensions, and risks and opportunities in a room, became casual chats with people who love what they do, a job so connected to their values and passions that they rarely feel the need to talk about it. But light up when asked.
These casual chats soon revealed CERES most dire communication challenge.
If I literally showed you how CERES carefully supports, sources, packs and delivers across Melbourne, it would sound like a greenwashing ad.
The practice of giving the impression of being environmentally ethical by honing in on the only aspect of your business that is, has become such common practice, that the rare groups like CERES, who quietly go out of their way to be ethical, have disappeared under the noise of businesses pointing out their “green-ish” programs and promises, whilst keeping the more dirty practices quiet.
We all fall for it, not because we are ignorant or lazy. But because this practice abates the crushing guilt we feel for not doing enough. The warm and fuzzy images of hands in soil, sun flare, and colourful food in rustic wooden boxes save us from this feeling.
At its worst, these regular points we score for being good can make us smug, and feel like we have the right to judge others for doing more than they are.
The guilt, smugness, and judgment cycle then drags us all in and spins us around, and we don’t even notice that we are stuck in greenwashing’s endless spin cycle.
There have been calls to put warnings on Greenwashing claims, and I am in total support. It manipulates our desire to do the right thing, and makes us retreat into the safety of feeling like not doing the wrong thing, is enough. Rewarding our inaction.
After many months of chats, I found there was none of this kind of guilt, smugness or judgment in CERES, because no one is pointing out what they have done, nor what they intend to do, because the job of being sustainable is an endless pursuit. When this work is done inside a supportive community, this pursuit is a joyous and affirming one.
The truth is, we can be doing enough to correct the way we grow and consume food, and that’s a wonderful ritual and belief that can connect and nurture us.
That led us to a brand positioning that wasn’t a pious statement or an impressive goal, it was a simple question.
Can Food Be Fairer?
The answer to this question changes daily, and that’s precisely what CERES does. They try to make the fairest and most sustainable decision for today, knowing there could be a fairer way tomorrow.
It’s not about what CERES have done, nor what they intend to do because they can’t predict what the better solution might be, only be open to it when it comes.
This question is an open one, with CERES asking…
Can farming be fairer? It can be when you support regenerative farming practices.
Can packaging be fairer? It can be when you make re-use and recycling an enjoyable ritual.
Can workplaces be fairer? They can be when everyone is given opportunities and support.
Can the future be fairer? It can be when profits fund the state’s biggest climate education
program.
And the answer is always yes, and welcomes the better ways their community can work together.
To grow this new brand idea, we redesigned the Fair Food Boxes and delivery vans as unmissable branded devices, to help spread the Fair Food story.
How food can be fairer is being discussed in their newsletters, events, online ads and community radio advertising.
At a time where the cost of food is rising, CERES is challenging their current and new customers to think about the true cost of cheap food, and to reframe the value of investing in fairer alternatives.
With ‘Can Food Be Fairer?’ CERES Fair Food now has an enduring brand platform that keeps them engaged with their passionate community, and focused on seeking better ways to grow, support, and deliver food.