<strong>Minneapolis craft meat brand got its start at the local farmers market but is now headed for grocery aisles across the country.</strong>
Man Cave Craft Meats is moving from its tent at the Minneapolis Farmers Market to grocery stores across the country—with packaging and branding help from CBX.

"The founders of Man Cave Meats, Nick and Josh Beste, were university students when they launched their business by crafting standout flavor combinations with an obsessive focus on quality," said CBX Managing Partner Nancy Brown. "As Man Cave Meats geared up to reach thousands of new customers, our job was to help the company build its brand identity and create attention-grabbing product packaging."

In less than a year, the brand grew from zero to more than 500 stores, with even more aggressive rollout plans for the future. "Man Cave Meats achieved this type of growth by bringing a truly new product experience to consumers," said Brown, who is based in CBX's Minneapolis office. "From 50/50 Bacon burgers, to sriracha chicken sausages, to buffalo-style bratwursts with bleu cheese, Man Cave Meats offers creative combinations that are unique and appeal to consumers seeking new flavor experiences."

Befitting this creativity, Man Cave Meats' new packaging is atypical as well. The designs feature black backgrounds, attention-grabbing typography treatments and iconic imagery in an aesthetic approach reminiscent of the world of craft beer. "This brand is all about distinctive flavor," Brown said. "We wanted to reinforce this by creating a distinctive package design system that disrupts the shelf and ultimately drives sales."

While the packaging celebrates quality and conveys the Beste brothers' love of their craft, it was not designed to appeal to everybody, Brown noted. "People who love craft meat are a kind of tribe, and they respond to an authentic, bold and true brand personality," she explained. "They don't do 'generic'."

Images of muscular males with beards and tattoos might not be appropriate for mainstream brands on the meat aisle, but such images—as well as taglines like "Long live the butcher!"—are right in line with the Man Cave Meats brand, said Nick Beste, CEO.

"Our core customer is an unpretentious foodie—a down-to-earth meat-eater who wants food that satisfies and stimulates," Beste noted. "He believes that meat should be damn good, which is why we make our products the same way today as the day we started—in small batches, with premium cuts of meat and in creative flavor combinations."