Toronto’s Union has been named agency of record for Country Harvest, one of Weston Bakeries’ family of bread brands.

Union is tasked with overseeing brand repositioning and strategy, along with product creative. Its work for Country Harvest will include a national integrated campaign in English and French Canada, debuting in early 2017.

Weston has been investing in product innovation in recent years, and Country Harvest has over 30 different flavour and ingredient variations across bread, bagel and roll products. Subtej Nijjar, partner and president at Union, says the major opportunity and goal now is to create a single modern packaged goods brand positioning that can house all of those different products, especially as it continues down the path towards even further innovation.

“They’ve done a fantastic job of creating amazing products that Canadian consumers love with unbelievable penetration,” he says. “But they haven’t really spent a ton of time and dollars on the brands from a communication standpoint because they’ve been more focused on product delivery and innovation. Now the opportunity we have is to create a unique and modern brand positioning and integrated idea for them so we can cement them in the lives of consumers. This is one of those brands that many households consume on a daily basis, but knowing all the channels we have available to us today, we can create a more modern packaged goods brand that talks to consumers and engages with them on a deeper level.”

The shop won the business following a multi-week competitive pitch it was invited to be a part of following its work on another Weston Bakeries brand, D’Italiano. Union began its work with D’Italiano earlier this year on a campaign that will debut in the coming weeks.

Union’s other CPG clients have included Mondelez Canada, Kraft Canada and Alexander Keith’s. The most recent creative work on the Country Harvest brand prior to this was handled by Toronto’s The Hive.