Ingenuity is a kind of magic. The kind of magic that means a person can pull together a delicious, nourishing meal from a fridge raid in five minutes flat.
That ingenious spirit – resourceful, instinctive, quietly brilliant – became the guiding light for Plants, a range of quick kitchen wins from the founders of Deliciously Ella. Products were 100% natural, plant-based, and spanned across categories: from fresh pastas to veggie burgers to protein pastas and pesto.
Our team at Sonder & Tell was brought in to create the strategy and verbal identity for the brand: a tone, idea and voice that could carry the products into people’s lives and cupboards with ease, while our partners at Belief Machines brought the visuals to life. The task wasn’t to create a new way of cooking. It was to honour the one people wished they had time for – and give them a way back into it.
What we heard
We always start by listening. In customer interviews, we kept hearing the same things:
“I love cooking, but I don’t have time.”
“I want to cook – but life gets in the way.”
“It’s hard to cook from scratch while juggling work and little ones.”
Cooking hadn’t stopped being important – it had just become harder to fit into real life. Solutions like Deliveroo didn’t feel like a satisfying swap; they lacked both visibility over ingredients and connection to a craft. Turns out the customers really wanted to cook for themselves and their people – for the ingredients, yes, but also for the feeling. The small hit of satisfaction that comes from pulling something together.
This wasn’t just a customer truth. It was a founder truth, too. Ella Mills (founder of Deliciously Ella) built an entire business around her love of food. But running two companies and raising young kids, her joy in cooking often had to take a backseat.
The strategy
Busy-ness was the barrier. But it was also the unlock. Instead of fighting time, we leaned into it – framing it not as a limitation, but as a creative constraint. The idea was to turn the panic of “I don’t have time!” into a positive reframe: “What can I do with ten minutes?”
Ingenuity became the brand’s guiding value. Inspired by the IKEA Effect – the idea that people feel more connected to what they’ve had a hand in creating – we realised the answer wasn’t to take the cooking away. It was to meet people halfway. To give them a culinary shortcut that still felt like theirs.
The verbal identity
We called the brand idea The Possibility of Plants – a phrase that captured the optimism, flexibility, and flavour potential of the range.
The voice was unfussy, positive and solution-oriented. It celebrated the cleverness of getting something on the table and enjoying it. From pesto-y mushrooms on toast, to squash tortellini finished with the good olive oil, to five-bean chilli you pop in the oven and serve with smashed avo on the side.
Every word – from pack copy to brand story – reflected the life of the Plants customer and their desire for clever home cooking. The copy was designed to help people feel creative, while also speaking to the founding team’s expertise and lifelong love of plants.
Ultimately, we wanted Plants to feel like more than a product range. It became a companion in the kitchen. A small nudge of support. A joyful shortcut. It was never about taking the cooking away. It was about giving it back – in a form people actually had time for.
Kate Hamilton is the co-founder of Sonder & Tell, a B Corp certified brand consultancy that helps businesses define their positioning, articulate their story in language, and train their team to live and breathe the brand every day. S&T clients include Mindful Chef, DASH, Lick, Motorway and Octopus Legacy.
CREDITS
Sonder & Tell
Strategy Director: Kate Hamilton
Strategy Director: Emily Ames
Creative Lead: Rae Boocock
Belief Machines
Marketing Director: Fran Pearce
Creative Director: Emma Quigley
Ingenuity is a kind of magic. The kind of magic that means a person can pull together a delicious, nourishing meal from a fridge raid in five minutes flat.
That ingenious spirit – resourceful, instinctive, quietly brilliant – became the guiding light for Plants, a range of quick kitchen wins from the founders of Deliciously Ella. Products were 100% natural, plant-based, and spanned across categories: from fresh pastas to veggie burgers to protein pastas and pesto.
Our team at Sonder & Tell was brought in to create the strategy and verbal identity for the brand: a tone, idea and voice that could carry the products into people’s lives and cupboards with ease, while our partners at Belief Machines brought the visuals to life. The task wasn’t to create a new way of cooking. It was to honour the one people wished they had time for – and give them a way back into it.
What we heard
We always start by listening. In customer interviews, we kept hearing the same things:
“I love cooking, but I don’t have time.”
“I want to cook – but life gets in the way.”
“It’s hard to cook from scratch while juggling work and little ones.”
Cooking hadn’t stopped being important – it had just become harder to fit into real life. Solutions like Deliveroo didn’t feel like a satisfying swap; they lacked both visibility over ingredients and connection to a craft. Turns out the customers really wanted to cook for themselves and their people – for the ingredients, yes, but also for the feeling. The small hit of satisfaction that comes from pulling something together.
This wasn’t just a customer truth. It was a founder truth, too. Ella Mills (founder of Deliciously Ella) built an entire business around her love of food. But running two companies and raising young kids, her joy in cooking often had to take a backseat.
The strategy
Busy-ness was the barrier. But it was also the unlock. Instead of fighting time, we leaned into it – framing it not as a limitation, but as a creative constraint. The idea was to turn the panic of “I don’t have time!” into a positive reframe: “What can I do with ten minutes?”
Ingenuity became the brand’s guiding value. Inspired by the IKEA Effect – the idea that people feel more connected to what they’ve had a hand in creating – we realised the answer wasn’t to take the cooking away. It was to meet people halfway. To give them a culinary shortcut that still felt like theirs.
The verbal identity
We called the brand idea The Possibility of Plants – a phrase that captured the optimism, flexibility, and flavour potential of the range.
The voice was unfussy, positive and solution-oriented. It celebrated the cleverness of getting something on the table and enjoying it. From pesto-y mushrooms on toast, to squash tortellini finished with the good olive oil, to five-bean chilli you pop in the oven and serve with smashed avo on the side.
Every word – from pack copy to brand story – reflected the life of the Plants customer and their desire for clever home cooking. The copy was designed to help people feel creative, while also speaking to the founding team’s expertise and lifelong love of plants.
Ultimately, we wanted Plants to feel like more than a product range. It became a companion in the kitchen. A small nudge of support. A joyful shortcut. It was never about taking the cooking away. It was about giving it back – in a form people actually had time for.
Kate Hamilton is the co-founder of Sonder & Tell, a B Corp certified brand consultancy that helps businesses define their positioning, articulate their story in language, and train their team to live and breathe the brand every day. S&T clients include Mindful Chef, DASH, Lick, Motorway and Octopus Legacy.
CREDITS
Sonder & Tell
Strategy Director: Kate Hamilton
Strategy Director: Emily Ames
Creative Lead: Rae Boocock
Belief Machines
Marketing Director: Fran Pearce
Creative Director: Emma Quigley
Further Reading
