MEATUP Shashlik Ketchups

Problem: An analysis of the meat sauce category revealed that, despite the wide variety of flavours and packaging formats, the market remains visually homogeneous. This is especially noticeable in the tomato and barbecue sauce segments, where brands repeatedly rely on imagery of fire, smoke, and hot grills, combined with dark colour palettes, heavy typography, and overtly masculine aesthetics. These conventions communicate the product’s purpose quickly, but they also make brands difficult to distinguish and have become established category clichés. Sauces tend to differ primarily in flavour rather than in concept, leaving the emotional and social potential of the category largely unexplored.

Idea: The project focuses on a young urban audience aged 24–30, exhausted by the fast pace of city life and constant digital communication. A short trip outside the city and the preparation of shashlik become a way to switch off, slow down, and reconnect emotionally with loved ones. Shashlik is understood not simply as a dish, but as a familiar shared ritual that requires little planning and brings people together through cooking, conversation, and time spent with one another. This insight became the foundation of MEATUP’s positioning: a contemporary ketchup brand for shashlik that transforms an ordinary meal into a ritual of real-life connection. The essence of the brand is “a taste for connection,” while its key values are closeness, simplicity, and freedom.

Solution: The name MEATUP combines the words meat and meet up, linking the product with an informal gathering and emphasising that the experience is not only about the taste of the food, but also about the moment of togetherness. Instead of aggression, strength, and exaggerated toughness, the brand communicates closeness, ease, spontaneity, and the pleasure of being together.

The visual identity is built around the skewer, one of the most recognisable symbols of shashlik and outdoor gatherings. The logo appears to be threaded onto it, the vertical label composition follows its elongated shape, and the cap resembles a skewer handle. As a result, the packaging becomes more than a container: it becomes part of a familiar ritual.

The product line includes three flavours: tomato, paprika, and garlic. Bold colour differentiation and large ingredient imagery make the variants easy to identify while maintaining a coherent visual system. MEATUP reimagines everyday ketchup as a symbol of real-life connection, reminding people that the simplest moments become meaningful when there is someone to share them with.