Traditionally in food and beverage, ‘healthiness’ and ‘indulgence’ have been seen as mutually exclusive. Permissible foods and physical benefits have dominantly been cued through clinical visuals (e.g. plentiful use of blue and white, and negative space), an emphasis on what has been removed from the product (e.g. “sugar free” claims) and have been mediated by authority figures (e.g. medical professionals). Meanwhile, the indulgence space has been dominated by visuals cuing rich sensory pleasure (e.g. flowing melted chocolate) and allusions to the illicit.

However, over the past few years the landscape has changed, and these formerly opposing poles have been brought together as consumers expect real, indulgent flavour from better-for-you foods and increasingly, added health benefits from products eaten as treats. Let’s take a look at how a few brands are coding both permissibility and indulgence across the sector.

Contemporary Crafted Flavour

One way in which more emergent brands disrupt tropes of permissibility vs indulgence and better-for-you as clinical and lacking in taste appeal is to combine cues of vibrant rich flavour (e.g. through use of bright tertiary colours, associated with depth) and of modern craft (e.g. whimsical hand-drawn illustration) with language around health benefits (e.g. fruit content).

Good Guys Bakehouse embody this with a rich yellow matt pack, cueing the vivid flavour of cheddar cheese, while hand-drawn characters interacting with product photography indicate careful makership with a sense of humour. Meanwhile, The Beginnings use watercolour-style illustration to depict fruit and nut ingredients dynamically across packs, with a different tertiary colour for each flavour showcasing the variety of the range, coding the healthy snacks as bursting with joyful yet complex, handcrafted flavour.

Good Guys Bakehouse and The Beginnings packaging

Vive snack bars also showcase varied, vibrant flavour through this use of colour, while using a different visual style to depict products. The bar shown here, complete with gooey caramel within and around it (and photographed elsewhere more naturalistically but still with oozing filling), could pass for an indulgent confectionary creation, suggesting a rush of uncompromising sugary pleasure – but icons guide the reader to the product’s health benefits. References to small-batch production allowing for experimental “flavour of the month” variants combine with reference to digital aesthetics (positioning a visibly rendered, exaggeratedly hyperreal image of the product on a flat matt background), suggesting contemporary creativity and craft.

 Screengrabs from Vive website

Wholesome Nourishment

Similarly, other health-focussed brands play against what have now become clichés of top-down, stern authority figures prescribing tasteless food-medicine, opting instead to focus on codes of warmth, fullness and nurture.

The aptly-named Nourish, for example, craft snacks that, while focussing on keeping the ingredients list free from – as they describe them – “nasties”, pairs this with language of plenty (e.g. “this selection box is crammed full of love and deliciousness”) and imagery that cues caregiving (e.g. snacks being passed from one person’s hand above to another’s slightly below). This aligns the brand with the warm comfort of being taken care of, while emphasising fullness of flavour as well as emotion.

Screengrabs from Nourish website

 Kin + Deum’s Wholesome Rice Chips also centre hearty nourishment through the product name, with the descriptor “Wholesome”. The London restaurant that produces the snacks echoes this language of simultaneous nourishment and enjoyment, e.g. through reference in the menu to dishes “created mindfully for the pleasures of your wellbeing”. Muted green tones and warm wood, as well as wellness events and partnerships with local businesses code the whole enterprise as a space of gentle care, and the Wholesome Rice Chips as a part of the experience that you can take with you as you continue your journey. The restaurant’s aims of “preserving the rich traditions of Thai cuisine and snacks” and emphasis on slow cooking suggest comforting home fare, imbuing the products with a sense of care and nostalgia.

Kin + Deum product imagery (website) and Instagram post

Transportive Pleasure

Yet other brands reimagine traditional codes of indulgence and permissibility through allusions to transportive multi-sensory pleasure. For example, Hidden Fruits plays with references to illicitness dominantly used to denote luxurious richness, e.g. in chocolate or icecream – the “hidden” of the brand name signalling covertness as well as sounding similar to “forbidden” when followed by “fruits”, while the deep red colour of the pack is associated with passionate emotion. The consumption ritual described on pack (“Remove from the freezer 20 minutes prior to eating”) heightens the association with icecream and premeditated, eagerly anticipated indulgence. Nevertheless, the product itself combines fruit and chocolate, balancing health and pleasure, and the on-trend matt packaging and contemporary font signal modern creativity, positioning this offering as a gently ironic reimagining of these ideas, while retaining the immersive coding of sensorial pleasure associated with them.

Hidden Fruits packaging and product (from brand website)

Meanwhile,  NOMOSU chocolate uses a gradient effect on pack to connote a transportive flavour experience. While the focus here remains on what the product does not contain (i.e. sugar), the way this is presented in terms of pack design presents this more in line with emergent depictions of immersive flavour. Often used to cue softness and gentle movement, the smooth transition between colours suggests evocative sensory experience and enjoyment, stepping away from the clinical cues of restriction that traditionally dominate this space.


NOMOSU packaging (from brand website)

Finally, Cosmic Dealer takes this idea of transportive, healthy flavour into another dimension (literally), with allusions to potentially other-worldly experiences. In the brand name, “cosmic”, suggests an experience on a higher, extra-terrestrial plane, and “dealer”, when combined with visual styles invoking tarot iconography, suggests transcendentally deep, mystical insight. Meanwhile, social media highlights the health benefits and low sugar content of the product while shots bringing together the variety of colourful yet mutedly natural-looking fillings suggest inspiring taste possibilities. These products, then, are coded as going beyond just a treat or a snack: not just chocolate, but better than chocolate, with the healthy ingredients as a benefit that will take you further than a standard chocolate flavoured experience, uplifting mind, body and soul.

Cosmic Dealer pack and product imagery from brand website, and screengrab of Instagram feed

Indulgent Vitality

In the out of home space, we see brands combining foods traditionally seen as indulgent with those associated with nourishment (e.g. in Farmer J’s Tenderstem [broccoli] Mac [and cheese]). On the brand’s website and social media feeds, hallmarks of foodie indulgence such as cheese pulls and glossy sauces are pictured alongside vibrant, veg-heavy plates of garnished, varied food – coding healthy food as desirably tasty, and indulgent ingredients as permissible within the framework of healthy eating. Similarly, the brand disrupts notions that fast convenience and the vitality of healthy ingredients are incompatible by highlighting vibrant greens and fresh vegetable colours in photography of its Field Tray products – a combination meal offering the variety associated with eating well in a choice of 3 components.

Farmer J Tenderstem Mac and screengrab of feed including Fieldtray imagery – both from Instagram

Likewise, Jenki Matcha emphasises the health credentials of its hero ingredient (e.g. through positive comparison to coffee) while incorporating matcha into treats depicted as deeply sensorially appealing (e.g. gooey cookies, soft-serve and silky, shiny mousse and pudding) – coding a mix and match attitude: indulgence plus health benefits as pleasurable balance.

Both brands also provide recipes and, in the case of Jenki, showcase customer creations – coding their attitude towards balanced pleasures as open to change and customisation, as opposed to being reliant on top-down rules, and as rooted in experimental creativity. Equally, by playfully joining in with trends and online discourse (e.g. “Our *attempt* at the viral pink cold foam”), Jenki positions itself as desirable and knowing, suggesting that products focussing on health benefits are no longer just a prosaic duty but something to be enjoyed or even coveted.

Screengrabs from Jenki Instagram

3 Key Takeaways for Brands:

  1. Heath benefits and taste pleasure are no longer mutually exclusive: consumers expect better-for-you products to taste great and code true indulgence and satisfaction, not a sanitised or mitigated version of it. Whether through cues of crafted flavour, wholesome nourishment, transportive pleasure or indulgent vitality, coding rich enjoyment of better-for-you food is key.

  2. Indulgence is moving beyond simply leveraging rich taste and texture cues as brands take a more evocative approach to coding multi-sensory enjoyment and combine these with references to health benefits.

  3. There is permission to play with and subvert established codes of the category in order to emphasise the remixed nature of your product – as shown through gently ironic references to codes of indulgence by Hidden Fruits, or Farmer J’s blending of fresh, vital ingredients and OOH convenience.

Sophia Lucena Phillips, Project Director

The Semiotics of Permissible Indulgence: How to have your better-for-you cake and enjoy it