- Hometown Food Company is bringing back Chef Boyardee with a new campaign and a modern twist for today’s consumers.
- The new effort, “Now We’re Cheffin,’” features redesigned packaging, updated packaging, a modernized brand character and new products, such as a protein-enriched canned pasta and boxed skillet meals.
- The campaign includes a television spot depicting a family making dinner together using one of the new skillet meal boxes. The spot will run on CTV, display, and social and retail media channels.
The new campaign is intended to reintroduce the once-iconic brand to a new consumer who may not be familiar with the product, said John Nunziato, chief creative officer of Little Big Brands, the agency that developed the campaign.
“Our approach was to change the energy around the brand by [giving] it a voice that is new and fresh and relevant for today,” Nunziato said. “One of the biggest challenges was to move from nostalgia to relevance. Nostalgia is great, but it’s not a strategy per se.”
Most significantly, the agency chose to focus on new products that resonate with today’s consumer, particularly a Protein Canned Pasta product (that contains 25 grams of protein per can) and boxed pasta mixes that can feed a family in a hurry, Nunziato said. From there, the agency focused on redesigning the company’s packaging, modernizing the brand character to a more realistic image, and developing the “Now We’re Cheffin’” brand idea.
“Part of what we wanted to do was create a platform that was more than an ad – to give it a relatable idea beyond a tagline,” Nunziato said. “What’s interesting about ‘Now We’re Cheffin’ is we stopped thinking about Chef Boyardee as the character for a brand but more of an attitude. Anyone can be a chef with this brand.”
Chicago-based Hometown Food Company purchased the nearly 100-year-old brand in 2025 with an eye toward rejuvenating it and making it relevant to modern audiences. Earlier this year, the brand raised its profile through a NASCAR sponsorship.
