Beyond Broth Aims to Go “Bigger Than Broth” With Rebrand to Grace’s Goodness Organics

Just over a year after adding industry veteran Sarah Bird as its CEO, plant-based powdered broth brand Beyond Broth announced last week its new identity as Grace’s Goodness Organics, a move intended to position itself in the broader wellness category with the ultimate goal of building a brand that is “bigger than broth.”

The rebrand opens the door for expansion into additional categories, Bird said, as well as improves its flagship broth product line with more convenient stick pack packaging, updated formulation and revised product nomenclature. The brand’s three SKUs, Better Belly (formerly Yummy Tummy), Immune, and Vitality, which all now contain MCT powder and nutritional yeast, launched on the brand’s website last week, with a retail rollout to follow in the coming months.

The company has retained the suggested retail price of $2.49 per packet, while also rolling out variety packs for the first time.

Founded by wellness professional Grace Ventura in 2014, Beyond Broth brought on Bird, the former CEO at Bhakti Chai and CMO of Annie’s, in the fall of 2019 with the goal of helping Ventura scale the business. After Bird took over as CEO, she began by first conducting research on Beyond Broth’s branding and use occasions, while simultaneously working to expand the company’s reach via ecommerce. From consumer feedback and online sales data, Bird said she saw an “opportunity to optimize” the product and brand to appeal more broadly to the wellness community.

“What I have brought to each business is really trying to understand the consumer and how this brand fits in their life and the problem that we’re solving for them,” Bird said. “Q1 of last year was [about] ‘How does Beyond Broth fit? What is the magic of this brand for the people that know and love it?’ And then that gave us the foundation to then really do this evolution.”

Beyond the updated, contemporary look, the company also wanted to make the product more convenient and accessible, Ventura said, finding that consumers used it as a more functional replacement for coffee or tea. To achieve this, and make the product “more turnkey,” the company switched to stick packs in order to be more portable and added MCT powder and nutritional yeast, both of which it had previously recommended consumers add themselves.

Bird said the team also recognized the need to more clearly answer the question of “how is this going to be good for me?” to stand out against its competitors; now adding callouts on the back of the pack to indicate the broths are gluten-free, zero sugar, vegan and sources of vitamins A and C.

While the brand’s main focus in 2019 was brick-and-mortar retail, with placements in Whole Foods and King Soopers, when Bird joined the brand she significantly increased its Amazon and direct-to-consumer business. This move, combined with the surge in ecommerce shopping due to COVID-19, led to ecommerce accounting for the majority of the brand’s sales in 2020. Still, Bird said, Grace’s Goodness aims to be an omnichannel brand. It is currently working with retailers to transition from Beyond Broth to Grace’s Goodness products, hoping to hit retail shelves in the next few months.

Moving forward, Ventura said, they also plan to target airports, corporate campuses and other on-the-go channels where consumers are looking for wellness-focused products. It’s positioning a shift that also will play out in stores, with Bird stating she believes Grace’s Goodness could now be merchandised in larger wellness sets, versus limited to its previous placement in the soup aisle.

Bird added she sees the brand competing with other products that “consumers are using to proactively and conveniently manage their wellness,” like energy shots and probiotic shots, as well as powdered products like protein powder and collagen powder. In conversations with retailers, she said some aim to place the product with tea or coffee or with other functional products in the store. But new merchandising comes with new on-shelf competition, and Bird said Grace’s Goodness aims to stand out among similar products from brands like Four Sigmatic, Ancient Nutrition and Vital Proteins with vibrant packaging that places more emphasis on the broths’ plant-based formulation, nutritionals and functionality.

Though the new brand identity also creates the opportunity to move into new categories, Bird said, they aren’t ready to unveil them yet. Ventura said any new products will have a consistent wellness-focused throughline, building off her founding mission of “helping people be nourished everywhere, anytime.”

“I would say the DNA of this business is that it’s plant-based, organic, clean label and delicious, with wellness benefits,” Bird said. “So that’s the space that we’re going to continue to focus on.”