King Arthur Refreshes Platform as Baking Sales Surge

After 230 years in business, King Arthur Flour has risen to be more than a flour producer. As it grows to feed the refreshed consumer interest in baking, the company last week announced its new name, King Arthur Baking Company, an updated logo and a handful of innovations to embrace dietary trends.

“As part of longer range strategic planning, we asked ourselves if our current branding was serving what we’re trying to achieve, where we’re headed,” said co-CEO Karen Colberg. “We concluded our name was not reflective of who we are and who we’ll continue to be – bakers.”

The rebrand has been in development for the past 18 months and comes after a recent uptick in baking ingredient sales: as consumers sheltered in place, many looked to baking to relieve their boredom, anxiety and appetites. From mid-March through June, the company broke its single-day sales records every day, with growth both in stores and online, and saw a 153% year-over-year increase in pounds of flour sold. With the fall and holiday season — usually the company’s biggest sales period — imminent, the company is upping its production capacity and reevaluating the role of its online business.

“We think our D2C is a big part of our growth, not only for the sales, but also for customer engagement and how close we can be with the customer,” said Bill Tine, King Arthur’s VP of marketing.

NOSH reporter Beth Kaiserman talked to Colberg about the rebrand, new products and how King Arthur seeks to satisfy consumers at all levels of the baking spectrum.