By 2021 the UK's better-for-you snack shelf was growing fast. Healthy snacking was expanding at around 6.6% a year against just over 1% for snacks overall. Almost none of it was safe for the roughly two million people in the UK living with a food allergy. The protein in most healthy bars is nuts.

That October, as Natasha's Law brought allergen labelling into force, And Rising was hired to create a whole snack brand from scratch, building around a unique seed snack bar product formulation that was allergen-free.

The trouble with the free-from aisle is that it feels like missing out. And for all the weight the media now puts on allergen safety, that market is small next to healthy snacking as a whole. The potential was a snack for everyone, not the few, and Beam's bar tasted good enough to belong there.

So the brand strategy led with a feeling instead of a fact: free from the usual fear, but full of the joy of never having to worry. Work included name, positioning, tone of voice, identity, digital presence, paid social and OOH advertising.

The name was inspired by the founder's son, who had never been able to pick up a snack and just enjoy it, and who couldn't stop smiling at the first prototype.

Beam was born.

On pack, the safety claim was demoted on purpose, "allergen free" set in between "plant based" and "high in fibre", never the headline.

The asterisk, usually a warning icon on a label, was flipped into an icon, and the rest of the brand grew from there: sunflowers and sunshine worked into every part of the experience.