Kerry Foods seeks agency for relaunch of Mattessons meat

Kerry Foods is searching for an advertising agency to handle a multi-million relaunch of its dormant Mattessons meat range.

McCann-Erickson handles advertising for Kerry Foods across all its brands, including Wall’s Sausages, Homepride Flour, and cake-mix brand Greens Mixes. The agency, which will repitch for the business, has worked for Kerry Foods since 1995, when it won the business from SP Lintas. The review is being handled by the AAR and will be overseen by marketing controller Toby Langton.

Langton says: “We intend in the brand significantly next year. The pitch is no reflection on McCann, we are just making sure we’ve got the right agency for the job.”

Langton says the new advertising would “definitely” comprise a television campaign and could resurrect the well known the “MMMattessons” strapline. He adds: “Mattessons’ brand still has high awareness and that campaign is highly memorable. Part of this process will be to review whether we use that or not.”

According to AC Nielsen, Kerry spent £2.2m on advertising over the past year. It has owned Mattessons since the Eighties, when it bought the brand from Van den Bergh Foods.

This year, Kerry Foods announced plans to buy Porkinsons from Pork Farm Bowyers and also acquired the rights to use the licence for Bowyers pies (MW January 24).