Innovating the future of breakfast
Tyson Foods, one of the world’s largest food companies, engaged Applied arts to help envision the future of frozen and refrigerated breakfast. Focused on the Jimmy Dean and Aidells brands, we developed innovation platforms grounded in consumer insights and brand strategy—delivering clear, actionable paths for product development. While the work remains confidential, it reflects the strategic depth that drives lasting brand evolution.
As one of the world’s largest food companies, Tyson Foods is behind household names like Jimmy Dean, Aidells, and Hillshire Farm. Known for feeding millions of people every day, they’re also committed to shaping what the future of food looks like. They brought in Applied arts to help do just that.
Our work centered on exploring new platforms for two of their key brands, Jimmy Dean and Aidells. The Tyson Foods’ team came to us with a wealth of research and a clear objective to reimagine what’s possible in refrigerated and frozen breakfast for a new generation of consumers. What they needed was a fresh strategic lens and tangible creative outputs to guide where these brands could go next.
We began by immersing ourselves in two distinct consumer mindsets, ultimately identifying a shared desire for exploration and experimentation through food. From there, we developed brand-aligned platforms designed to meet this moment—balancing experience, nostalgia, and value in ways that felt both ownable and new.
Examining how the brands’ trusted equities could flex to support a more customized, elevated breakfast moment at home, we explored bold flavor-forward ideas that stayed true to the brands’ culinary roots. Central to it all was the idea of balance—traditional and experimental, easy and involved, familiar and chef-inspired. These pillars formed the foundation for our platforms and even shaped what sub-brands could look like, laying early groundwork for potential new brands in the portfolio.
In the end, each brands’ new innovation platform included everything from strategic frameworks and brand narratives to mood boards, recipe concepts, naming directions, and positioning territories—all designed to give Tyson’s teams rich, ownable starting points for future development. While much of the work remains under wraps, it represents the kind of upstream thinking and category fluency that powers what ends up on shelves next.
