The brand story

Joseph Brennan Bakeries is a second-generation Irish family business, which has become as much a part of our culture as potatoes or the pint with its immediately familiar mantra ‘Today’s bread today’.

It’s a brand that has become synonymous with quality and freshness. Using only the finest ingredients, Brennans ensures bread comes hot from its ovens to reach the shelves within hours. In fact, its decision to bake overnight to ensure the freshest possible bread has revolutionised the industry.

Brennans Family Pan is Ireland’s favourite sliced pan and the brand’s most popular bread. Available in both 800g and 400g packs, and wrapped in that distinctive yellow wax wrapper for ultimate freshness, the original ‘Today’s bread today’ is a classic.

The range has expanded far beyond the sliced-pan staple to cater for the needs of Irish consumers, for example, with products that are high in fibre, whole-grain products, as well as a selection to suit the reduced household size in Ireland.

Brennans’ products are available in all retail outlets in the country and there is daily distribution to every corner of the island. The sliced pan is in the top-five selling grocery items in volume and value terms in most retail outlets.

Products

Brennans’ product range falls into the following categories: white, brown, batch, Weight Watchers, Natural Recipe Bread, buns, hot-dog rolls and catering. The pan varieties come in 800g and 400g sizes.

Innovation

Recognising how consumer lifestyles constantly change, Brennans has continually adapted its product range to suit every palate. The half-pan range, with 10 full slices, is ideal for single people or small families and is available in white pan, toast pan, wholegrain and wholemeal varieties.

The Brennans Natural Recipe range of breads has captured the magic of creating bread; delicious recipes that combine traditional tastes and flavours with new and exciting ingredients — Crunchy Wholemeal, Crunchy Bran, Crunchy Oatgrain and Crunchy Rye.

Brennans has also developed two special breads to appeal to children called Half & Half, which is filled with wholegrain goodness, and Whippersnapper. This enriched soft white bread, filled with calcium, niacin, iron and thiamine, is ideal for lunchbox sandwiches.

Continuing with the healthy theme, Brennans joined forces with Weight Watchers to make two varieties of low-calorie bread, which come in handy 400g packs.

At 42 calories, Brennans Weightwatchers Brown has the lowest calorie content per slice in Ireland, followed by Brennans Weightwatchers White, which has 47 calories per slice.

Marketing and promotion

Bright yellow and red are colours instantly associated with Brennan’s, as is any sentence which starts: “As old Mr Brennan used to say ... ” or “As I said to old Mr Brennan ... ” and finishes with “Today’s bread today”.

This voiceover has been used in Brennans advertising for many years, and recent radio campaigns have continued to feature it with the familiar Irish traditional tune in the background. However, they have taken on a contemporary twist, covering topics such as the new countries that are represented in Ireland, for example Slovenia and Slovakia, emphasising that Brennans is ‘at home all over Ireland’.

Another ad following the same style highlights the brands’ innovativeness with its resealable pack for its wholewheat product, and old Mr Brennan describing it as “the best thing since sliced bread”. Ads were also aired to coincide with particular occasions such as Father’s Day.

Turning to TV, one recent ad campaign for the traditional white sliced pan evokes the comforting feelings associated with family and home, showing the yellow and red Brennans van travelling in the dark, so a father, mother and son can enjoy the freshness of the bread for their sandwiches the next day. Another ad promoting the Natural Bread Recipe Company range focuses on the art of bread-making, featuring a baker kneading dough and with the tagline ‘Fresh thinking from Brennans’.

‘We’ve got quality all wrapped up’ is another tagline used by Brennans, indicating its strong market share and continued emphasis on taste and freshness.