With a wave of emergent players cropping up in grocery aisles worldwide and categories becoming increasingly crowded, brands are seeking ways to premiumise their offerings in order to enhance their distinctiveness, desirability, and relevance, and of course to  command higher price points. This is especially crucial as they navigate a growing cohort of hyper-connected, yet notoriously fickle Gen Z consumers. Here are three ways brands are getting it right:

From Careful Craft to Established Expertise / MOMA and Mother Root

Oat drink brand MOMA’s growing confidence is reflected in its refreshed proposition, Oats Made Extraordinary. Moving beyond its original tagline – The Craft Oat Co. – and the now-ubiquitous tropes of small-batch artisanship (e.g. hand-drawn typefaces, wholesome ingredient shots, the ever-present ‘natural’ storytelling), MOMA has repositioned itself as a category authority. Its new, arched wordmark stands tall as it takes centre stage on-pack, while relabelled variants – Signature, Extra Creamy, and Barista – signal a more assured presence and a time-tested mastery of the oat ‘milk’ craft.

Mother Root, a ginger-based non-alcoholic aperitif, has similarly refined its visual identity to reflect a more mature and serious standing in the growing no-and-low category. Gone are the stubby, apothecary-style brown bottles—relics of the early ‘booze alternative’ era. In their place, taller, longer-necked bottles with bevelled edges exude sophistication. Its pared-back design is also complemented with a bolder, slightly-serifed logo now sits proudly at the centre on-pack, guided by a bright yellow North Star, a subtle nod to its leadership status. The tagline The Feel-Good Aperitif further cements its confidence in its pre-dinner occasion, inviting consumers to embrace it as a ritual rather than an alternative.

Looking Across the Aisle / Happier Grocery


Sometimes, the best way to evolve a brand is to look beyond direct competitors and into the adjacent worlds of target consumers. By borrowing from culturally relevant categories and comparators, brands can tap into familiar aesthetics, ensuring they resonate authentically.

Just north of New York’s Tribeca, Happier Grocery’s Canal Street outpost has positioned itself as the Erewhon of the East Coast – an organic haven catering to Manhattan’s fashionable crowd. The store’s concrete-wrapped interiors and brushed-metal fridges evoke the industrial minimalism of a high-end professional kitchen. Taking cues from the understated elegance of brands like Aesop and Muji – whose utilitarian bottle designs have become synonymous with quiet luxury – Happier Grocery applies the same disciplined aesthetic to its private-label range. Products are uniformly stickered with leaf-green labels, their plain-spoken typography reflecting a design ethos that is both minimalist and democratic.

Trickling Down – The Luxury ‘Halo’ Effect

As luxury codes trickle down into premium – and eventually, mainstream – brands that tap into emergent culture gain an edge, borrowing the sheen of exclusivity to elevate their positioning. This ‘halo effect’ sees the aesthetics, rituals, and language of high-end brands cleverly reinterpreted, making even the most everyday products feel aspirational.

Take truffles. Once the preserve of Michelin-starred chefs, prized for their rarity and earthy decadence, they soon found their way into premium grocery aisles via truffle oil. But the trickle-down hasn’t stopped there. Now, truffle has cascaded into mainstream – cropping up as variants in Marmite’s and Sacla pesto’s product range, its once-exclusive status repackaged as accessible treat.

A similar shift is happening in wellness. Red light therapy, once reserved for the ultra-wealthy at luxury retreats like Six Senses Ibiza’s RoseBar, has been adapted for at-home use by brands like CurrentBody, whose sleek LED face masks offer a premium – but accessible –take on the trend. Now, TikTok users are ‘hacking’ the therapy by installing infrared chicken lamps in their bedrooms – demonstrating how once-elite signals eventually filter into everyday life.

As consumers become ever more fluent in luxury’s visual and cultural codes, these signals no longer belong solely to fine dining and high-end spas. The brands that borrow intelligently – without veering into pastiche – will command attention, desirability, and crucially, a premium price tag.

Three Key Takeaways for Brands:

  1. Authority Over Artisanship – Today’s premium brands win by owning their category with confidence—think bold design, clear expertise, and a sense of been-there-done-that mastery.

  2. Borrow, Don’t Mimic – Looking beyond your category is an exercise in cultural fluency and unlocks fresh ways to signal premiumness.

  3. Luxury Today, Mainstream Tomorrow – The premiumisation playbook is often written by the luxury sector. Spotting which high-end signals are about to ‘trickle down’—and translating them smartly for your audience—keeps your brand ahead of the curve.

Aaron Chan, Senior Semiotician

Levelling Up: Semiotic signals from the Premium world