Food rescue organization Second Harvest has revealed a new brand identity amid a national expansion of its distribution network and partnerships.

The rebrand, developed in collaboration with Toronto-based food, beverage and lifestyle agency Bob’s Your Uncle, includes an updated visual identity that aligns it more clearly with its mission statement of “No Waste. No Hunger.” As a charity, Second Harvest collects perishable items that are near their best before dates and redistributes them to community kitchens and food banks.

The rebrand was necessitated by a national expansion, says Bob Froes, CEO of Bob’s Your Uncle.

“Second Harvest grew up for the past 30 years as a GTA charity,” he explains. “If you look at Second Harvest’s earlier identity, it looked like what you would have expected from a grassroots charity. But Second Harvest is about to take its place among the biggest and best charities in the country – SickKids, Red Cross, UNICEF, it’s going to be at that stature in terms of size and impact. The branding identity just didn’t measure up.”

“We have taken an important journey, starting from our humble roots serving Toronto and growing to become a national organization supporting over 6,400 charitable food programs across the country,” says Lori Nikkel, Second Harvest’s CEO. “We’ve become an internationally recognized expert in the field of food rescue and redistribution.”

The new brand logo incorporates three circles representative of the organization’s values – innovative thinking, transformative tools and passionate people – while also introducing a gradient green palette to represent growth and sustainability. As part of the rebrand, Second Harvest brought its food rescue app, foodrescue.ca, under the master brand as well. The app was launched just before COVID.

“Foodrescue.ca became very big, very quick. And so two years ago, Second Harvest had a dilemma: they had the Second Harvest and the Food Rescue brands. The challenge for us was to decide how to bring this all together, and what should that brand be?” Froese explains. “In the end, we determined Second Harvest should be the masterbrand we carried forward, through Ontario and into every province across the country.”

Along with Second Harvest branding within the Food Rescue app, the new brand identity has been placed on Second Harvest’s fleet of delivery vehicles, its website and communications across all platforms, and its newly-opened facility in Toronto, which along with being a site for warehousing and distribution, “is also becoming a centre of excellence,” says Froese. “It’s being designed not only as a distribution centre and warehouse, but also as a knowledge centre.”