Case Study:
Donmar Foods
Brand Transformation
How NOVO MxC Helped Donmar Foods Reduce Costs, Increase Sales and Scale.
The Challenge
When Donmar Foods first approached NOVO MxC, it was already an established name in the Canadian foodservice industry, recognized for its quality products and long-standing customer relationships. However, its packaging and digital presence did not fully reflect the company’s experience, capabilities or market position. Donmar Foods saw an opportunity to modernize its brand, strengthen its competitive advantage and create new opportunities for business growth.
Founded in 1972, Donmar Foods is a Canadian food manufacturer serving commercial and institutional kitchens with products including soup bases, spices, seasoning blends, powdered drink mixes, desserts and more. Its distribution network serves restaurants, healthcare facilities, long-term care homes, schools, caterers and other foodservice operations.
What started as a packaging design project evolved into a strategic partnership encompassing website design and development, content creation, digital marketing, sales collateral and business development support. Together, these initiatives delivered measurable results, helping Donmar Foods reduce costs, increase sales and create new business growth opportunities.
Packaging Design That Reduced Costs by More Than $100,000 and Helped Increase Sales
Donmar Foods originally asked NOVO MxC to redesign the packaging for its best-selling chicken soup bases. The company had traditionally sold these products in rigid plastic tubs with printed labels applied to each container. As part of the project, Donmar also wanted to transition the product line to modern flexible pouches.
This was not simply a visual redesign. It was an opportunity to rethink the packaging from both a brand and operational perspective.
NOVO MxC developed a new packaging system that gave the products a cleaner, more contemporary appearance while communicating product information more clearly. The new pouch format also allowed graphics to be printed directly onto the package, eliminating the need for separate printed labels.
The financial impact was substantial. By moving from plastic tubs to flexible pouches, Donmar Foods realized savings of more than $100,000. Those savings came from significantly lower packaging production costs, reduced freight costs to transport empty packaging from the manufacturer to Donmar Foods, and lower shipping costs when Donmar sent finished products through its wholesale distribution network.
There were additional operational savings as well. Donmar no longer needed to purchase separate labels or allocate labour to applying them during production.
Once the redesigned pouches reached the market, Donmar saw an immediate uptick in sales. The new look resonated with its retail distribution network and business partners, giving a familiar product a stronger shelf presence and a more polished, contemporary presentation.
The impact extended well beyond the chicken soup base line. The redesigned packaging helped elevate the perception of Donmar Foods as a whole. Better visual design, clearer communication and a more modern format made the company look more current, capable and competitive within the foodservice industry.
What began as a packaging project became a brand-building initiative with measurable financial and sales benefits.
Building a Website That Became a Sales Tool
When Donmar Foods first approached NOVO MxC, its website consisted of a single page with only a few paragraphs of copy. For a company with more than five decades of experience and a broad product portfolio, the website did not communicate the true depth of the business.
Donmar hired NOVO MxC to create a new website that would improve its digital visibility and give prospective customers a much clearer understanding of what the company offered.
We designed and developed a substantially expanded website around the way customers search for foodservice products and suppliers. Rather than simply creating a more attractive online presence, we built a content structure designed to improve discoverability across Google search, AI chatbots and social media while giving buyers, distributors and foodservice professionals useful information about Donmar’s products, capabilities and markets.
Within a few months of launch, meaningful new business leads began arriving through the website.
An equally important result was how quickly the website became part of Donmar’s sales process. The sales team began using it as a pre-sales tool, directing prospects to relevant product pages, company information and supporting content before or after sales conversations. It quickly became an effective way to help prospects understand the breadth and credibility of Donmar Foods.
Traffic has continued to climb gradually since launch as the site has expanded and gained greater search visibility.
Just as importantly, the website changed how the company is perceived. Donmar now has an online presence that better matches the scale, experience and professionalism of the organization. For prospects encountering the business for the first time, the new website presents Donmar as a much larger and more established supplier than its previous one-page site ever could.
Ongoing Marketing and Creative Support Designed to Scale the Business
The success of the packaging and website projects led to a deeper relationship. In May 2026, Donmar Foods retained NOVO MxC on an ongoing basis to support a wider range of marketing, creative and business development initiatives.
Our work includes developing additional website content to increase Donmar’s visibility in Google search results and AI chatbot recommendations; creating sell sheets, sales presentations and product specification sheets; supporting advertising campaigns; writing and distributing press releases; researching prospective customers; building targeted prospect lists; and assisting with outreach to potential new clients.
The goal is to connect marketing activity directly to business development, not simply produce more content or creative assets.
Within three months, Donmar Foods was able to connect our work to progress against two of its most important business objectives: encouraging existing customers to increase their orders and helping the company sign new customers.
That is the kind of relationship we aim to build at NOVO MxC. Packaging, websites, SEO content, sales collateral and marketing should not exist as separate creative exercises. When aligned around a clear business strategy, each can strengthen the others and create momentum across the company.
NOVO MxC continues to work with Donmar Foods today, helping the business strengthen its market presence, support its sales team and identify new opportunities for growth.
And there is another chapter to this partnership. The business impact of our packaging, website and marketing work was strong enough that Donmar Foods also retained NOVO MxC to help launch an entirely new consumer-facing division of the company in 2025.
But that is a whole other story… or more accurately, another case study 😀
If you are looking for a creative and marketing partner that can help your business stand out, sell more and scale, please reach out to NOVO MxC and let’s chat.
To learn more about Donmar Foods, please visit their website.
