For more than 30 years, Aunt Bessie’s has been a staple in supermarket frozen food aisles.
The British brand, best known for its Yorkshire puddings, has become synonymous with roast dinners, and its iconic character is considered somewhat of a national treasure.
The grandma-esque Aunt Bessie has been smiling at customers from every packet for decades, a mixing bowl and spoon cradled in her arms.
She’s a familiar sight, but one that’s about to disappear from the UK completely, as the iconic logo has just had a major revamp.
And I’m sorry to report that the Aunt Bessie we all know and love is gone.
The frozen food brand has been quietly tweaking its logo for years, but the new look is said to be the biggest change since Aunt Bessie’s first launched in 1995.
The iconic character has had a ‘glow-up’, with her signature mixing bowl and wrinkles removed.
Her new look is described as being ‘fresher-faced’ and ‘more contemporary’.
Aunt Bessie is no longer cooking; instead, she’s now the hostess with the mostest, depicted as ‘open-armed and ready to serve up Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, honey-glazed parsnips, and many more of the nation’s favourites.’
The team behind the logo’s redesign, 1HQ Netherlands, shared a closer look at the illustration on Instagram. They explained that it was meant to show a ‘warmer, more welcoming Aunt Bessie’, adding that she sits at the heart of every pack ‘as if serving you personally’.
Aunt Bessie’s say these changes have come at a time when the way we eat roast dinners is ‘shifting’.
We no longer think of it as an occasion reserved only for Sunday; instead we eat the meal throughout the week, and four in 10 Brits now cook Yorkshire puddings whenever they feel like it.
A spokesperson for the brand added: ‘While her appearance may have changed, underneath it all, she’s still the same Aunt Bessie that families trust and can rely on’.
But marketing experts aren’t entirely convinced.
Dr Sabrina Gottschalk, a lecturer in marketing at Bayes Business School, believes the brand will lose some trust because of these changes.
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‘What’s interesting about the Aunt Bessie character redesign is that she has not just been made younger, but her role in the brand seems to have changed,’ she tells Metro.
‘The old Bessie with the mixing bowl was very much the cook who signalled experience and homemade food.
‘The new Aunt Bessie feels more like the host. With her open arms, she seems to be as much about bringing people around the table as about the food itself. That makes sense if roast dinners are changing too. People aren’t necessarily sitting down for the traditional Sunday roast in the same way and tend to eat Yorkshire puddings for all sorts of meals’
Dr Gottschalk continues: ‘Making Aunt Bessie feel younger and more open may help the brand move beyond a traditional Sunday lunch image, but the trade-off, of course, is losing some of the familiarity and trust that came with the original character.’
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Reactions to the new logo have been mixed, with some fans upset that Bessie has been ‘replaced by a younger model’ and others embracing the change as the character is now ‘fit’.
Taking to Facebook, Meirion Woolf shared an impassioned post about it, writing: ‘It is a real shame to see the classic Aunt Bessie pushed into retirement for a younger model. Erasing a familiar, grandmotherly face from the freezer aisle just feeds into the modern narrative that aging is something to hide or replace.
‘We should be celebrating older generations and the warmth they represent, not airbrushing them away for a corporate glow-up.’
However, others have commented on Instagram that the new design ‘looks brilliant’ and ‘incredible’ with @made.by.simon even joking that Aunt Bessie is now ‘fit’.
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