Jeroen Stirnberg - GranFood (GBfoods Europe)

What does it take to grow a brand in a category dominated by private labels, shifting consumer habits, and ever-increasing commercial pressure? For Jeroen Stirnberg, Marketing Director at GranFood, the answer lies in disciplined decision-making, sharp consumer relevance, and unwavering strategic clarity, not in flashy campaigns or chasing trends.

In this conversation, Jeroen shares how Grand’Italia, the Netherlands’ leading pasta and sauce brand, navigates brand growth through a combination of strong physical presence, sustainable innovation, and mental availability strategies, offering a refreshing and honest look behind the scenes of a modern food brand.

Local Autonomy with a Global Backbone

GBfoods Europe is owned by the Spanish family-owned investment company Agrolimen. It operates with a decentralised yet interdependent model. Each country’s business unit enjoys high levels of ownership and decision-making power, particularly concerning portfolio management, marketing strategy, and local innovation. The regional team, mainly based in the head office in Barcelona, provides the operational and strategic framework and support functions such as consumer insights, media strategy, budgeting systems, IT tools, and packaging research frameworks.

This infrastructure allows small agile teams, like the 33 people working at GranFood, to be more responsive to local consumer and shopper needs and opportunities. “There’s a strong sense of trust and empowerment,” Jeroen shares. “The guiding belief is that the local team knows best what the business needs.”

“There’s a strong sense of trust and empowerment. The guiding belief is that the local team knows best what the business needs.”

Balancing Brand Building and Efficiency in Retail

A central challenge for marketers today is balancing long-term brand building with short-term effectiveness. In an environment where achieving reach and mental availability requires thoughtful investment, GranFood takes a deliberate, evidence-led approach to brand growth.

At the heart of this approach is the consumer. GranFood believes brands exist to serve people, which means focusing on consistency, distinctiveness, and genuine relevance. Rather than chasing the latest trend or relying solely on short-term promotions, the company builds equity by ensuring its brands are meaningful and memorable in the lives of shoppers.

“You can’t do everything. So it’s really about making very sharp decisions with the resources you have.”

One important way to guide this strategy is through share of voice — understanding how visible and present a brand is within its category. For GranFood, this isn’t just about size or spend; it’s about making clear, consumer-driven choices on where the brand can truly add value. As Jeroen explains: “It’s really about making sharp decisions with the resources you have. Where do we offer something unique? Where can we win? Where is growth?”

By asking these questions, GranFood ensures its investments strengthen not only brand equity but also consumer relationships — building brands that matter today and will continue to matter tomorrow.

Innovation: Key to Deliver Value to Consumers and the Category

Innovation plays a vital role in ensuring that brands remain relevant, distinctive, and valuable to consumers. While it requires careful investment and thoughtful execution, innovation is essential for GranFood to strengthen both brand equity and category growth.

Jeroen highlights that true growth comes from a balanced synergy between innovation and communication. Innovation brings distinctiveness and freshness, while communication ensures these ideas resonate meaningfully with consumers. Together, they strengthen a brand’s ability to stay ahead of consumer expectations and category dynamics.

Grand’Italia, the Netherlands’ most visible Italian food brand, illustrates this philosophy. Guided by GBfoods Europe’s belief that “a brand must constantly prove itself to be worth purchasing”, Grand’Italia consistently brings new products and flavours to the market. This ongoing renewal not only delights consumers but also helps set the standard within the category. As Jeroen explains: “Keep innovating your brand, or risk being seen as the copycat instead of the one worth copying.”

“Keep innovating your brand, or risk being seen as the copycat instead of the one worth copying.”

For GBfoods Europe, innovation is not about chasing novelty but about creating long-term value — delivering solutions that are relevant, accessible, and rooted in consumer needs. By carefully choosing where to innovate, brands can remain leaders, inspire trust, and ensure sustainable growth for both consumers and retailers alike.

Therefore, Jeroen encourages companies to focus on purposeful innovation rather than innovating for its own sake, recognising that internal pressure can often cloud objective judgment. “The key is prioritisation. As a team, you need to act as a filter—deciding what to pursue and what to set aside—always with a long-term perspective in mind.”

Physical Availability as a Competitive Advantage

While many brands struggle to secure shelf space and visibility, Grand’Italia excels in physical availability. The brand doesn’t aim to be niche or premium, but proudly mainstream. It’s distinctive enough to fend off private label, yet familiar and accessible enough to dominate the middle of the market. Described as a “yellow wall” in-store, the packaging and presence across both pasta and sauces make it instantly recognisable, creating strong shelf impact and easy findability.

This success is no accident. It stems from years of strong collaboration between trade marketing, sales, and brand teams, and a strategy that’s laser-focused on standout packaging and category coverage. The yellow colour is especially distinctive in a category often dominated by blues and neutrals in pasta, or reds in tomato-based products. “In terms of physical availability, we’re in a very good position. That’s real credit to the whole organisation,” Jeroen states.

At the same time, GBfoods recognises that today’s shopper journey is increasingly digital. Just as Grand’Italia has mastered its presence offline, the brand is actively working to strengthen its digital availability. By applying the same focus and intentional design to online visibility, Grand’Italia aims to ensure that shoppers can easily find and choose the brand across every channel — physical and digital alike.

“In terms of physical availability, we’re in a very good position. We have accelerated our understanding of e-shopping and capabilities to further strengthen our position – regardless of channels.”

The takeaway is twofold: Offline, physical availability must be designed intentionally, from colour strategy to shelf presence to pack architecture. Online, brands must equally invest to be noticed, found, and chosen. For Jeroen, availability in all its forms goes hand-in-hand with mental availability. It is part of how a brand earns its place, not just in memory, but in everyday buying decisions. Grand’Italia’s case shows that owning the shelf — both in-store and online — is a strategic accomplishment, and one that continues to evolve with the shopper landscape.