Why Booths’ new look is much more than simply a rebrand

Booths has had a glow up. The 180-year-old supermarket this week unveiled a new, “contemporary and confident” brand refresh.

The new look features a more vibrant shade of blue, and comes with a new strapline emphasising its credentials as ‘The Family Grocers’ – just in case you didn’t realise the business is still run by the Booths family. The new branding will roll out across Booths’ website, supermarkets, packaging and van livery throughout 2026.

It would be easy to dismiss this as nothing more than the type of rebranding exercise that supermarkets typically roll out every decade or so, but this particular refresh marks a rather more significant moment for Booths. One that reflects a broader change in strategy; away from its retail stores and towards growing its vertically integrated manufacturing business.

Supermarkets are Booths’ ‘beating heart’

Don’t be fooled, its premium supermarkets remain very much the beating heart of the Booths brand. They retain such an affection among northerners (like me), that many will happily drive more than an hour to visit their nearest store. Booths has invested significantly in modernising its supermarkets and its loyalty scheme over recent years to keep the offer both appealing and competitive.

But as the cost-of-living crisis and increasing employment costs put ever more pressure on physical retailers, Booths’ store estate has been shrinking. The shuttering of Rippon in Yorkshire in May 2025 was the second of its supermarkets to close over the past two years. It left Booths with 25 stores across Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumbria and Cheshire.

With no new openings on the horizon, Booths wants to ensure it is maximising its existing assets, by expanding distribution of own-label products beyond its own store estate.

This new “broader business strategy” was unveiled by Booths CEO Nigel Murray in February, alongside the announcement that Booths had created a new-look senior team to see it through its next “chapter” of growth.

“There are significant opportunities in new markets and with new customers for what we make and develop, be that through other businesses or direct to consumers,” he said, at the time.

Booths’ new growth strategy

Now, Booths is actively on the hunt for new nationwide stockists so it can introduce its products – which include ready meals, meat, tea, coffee and wine – to new areas of the country, outside its northern heartlands.

The new brand identity has been designed in part to appeal to potential partners, reinforcing its credentials as “the irresistible food and drink specialist”.

But it’s not just new wholesale partnerships that are being targeted. Booths is also expanding its white label manufacturing business, following a major restructure of its cold and chilled manufacturing facilities in Preston in 2024.

Having sold its own-label lines via Amazon.com since 2018, Booths took on a major contract to manufacture lines for Amazon’s ByAmazon own-label line last year. It also currently manufactures for a range of wholesale partners and produces own-label products for independent retailers, including Spar Wholesale operator James Hall & Co.

These additional clients have helped Booths maintain profits in its factory arm, despite income falling by £1.6m in the year to March 2025, according to its latest accounts.

Booths has spent nearly 200 years establishing its near-legendary reputation in the north. For the next chapter, its sights are firmly set on taking that name further afield.