Truly Creative

From positioning to packaging, crafting brands is truly our thing.
For 20 years we’ve been obsessed with unwrapping the personality behind global brands and visionary startups – from tofu and trail mix to probiotics and pet food.

Founder

At Sloat Design Group, we develop and design brands that spark and sustain an emotional connection between people and products. We partner with our clients to clearly define and consistently express their unique brand personality.

Our experienced, award-winning team helps to build brands that stand out on-shelf, resonate with consumers and ultimately, win the hearts of their target audiences.


What Sets Us Apart: 

We're Specialized
We specialize in the world of consumer goods branding and packaging. This focus allows us to gain insights on consumer purchasing decisions, industry changes, and current trends.

We're Forward Thinking
We're always thinking a step ahead. Our goal is to ensure the long-term health of your brand and our design concepts take into account how the brand will evolve and extend as demand inevitably grows.

We Mean Business
We partner with you to develop real world solutions that give you a real return on your investment. At the outset of each project we develop a design brief that clearly lists your business objectives. These goals, combined with our marketplace expertise, drive the design process and help us to create the criteria that all of our designs must meet. This business minded process ensures that you are only presented with thoughtful and strategic designs that have your company and your consumers in mind. If the design doesn't sell then we haven't done our job.

We Design with a Conscience
We are constantly exploring ways to make your designs more environmentally and socially conscious. Working directly with companies that have a need for packaging, we feel a strong sense of responsibility to explore sustainable materials and practices that reduce our client's impact on the environment.

Please get to know us better at www.sloatdesign.com

Founder and Creative Director at Truly Creative, a San Francisco Bay Area based strategic brand and package design firm specializing in building consumer brands that stand out on-shelf, connect emotionally, and leave a lasting impression.

Clients have included Williams-Sonoma, Traditional Medicinals, Eggland's Best, Jovial Foods, Ajinomoto Frozen Foods, Annie Chun's, ConAgra Foods, Alexia Foods, Mommy's Bliss, So Delicious, Kalmbach Feeds, and Alex's Awesome Sourdough.

Specialties: 
-Brand Development (Strategy & Positioning, Naming, Identity) 
-Package Design (Structural Design, Package Design, Brand Extensions)
-Marketing Materials (Promotional Materials, Corporate Collateral, Product Literature)
-Environmental Design (Point of Purchase, Trade Shows, Signage)

Carrie Dufour

What 👉 can’t 👈 Private Label do?

That’s the question I brought to The Food Institute webinar yesterday, and it quickly became clear that private label is advancing rapidly and competing on much more than price.

Amazon is rolling out its top-rated products under a new Amazon Grocery PL. Save Mart is launching a PL meat line. Kroger is expanding Simple Truth with 80+ protein SKUs. Whole Foods is taking its private label into Asia for the first time. Store brands aren’t taking a back seat anymore, and they aren’t the compromise they used to be.

Chris Costagli from NielsenIQ shared that half of shoppers are buying more private label than ever. Younger shoppers are especially positive, unburdened by the old “generic” stigma. Private label is also pouring money into innovation to deliver health and functional benefits, not just cheaper options. Lou Biscotti from CBIZ added that even if grocery prices drop, more than half of consumers say they’ll stick with private label anyway.

With enticing PL brands like Bettergoods (Walmart’s 15th PL line!) pumping out hundreds of trend-forward, chef-inspired products under $5, with premium shelf placement and elevated packaging, it’s no surprise brands are feeling the squeeze. 

Even with all that momentum, there ARE still a few things private label can’t do.

Private label can’t:

1️⃣ Tell a personal founder's story 
They’re corporate creations, no farmer’s market origins, no scrappy kitchen experiments, no “we started this in our dorm room with $100 and a blender.”

2️⃣ Offer depth of expertise
They’re generalists, stretching from salsa to supplements. They can’t convincingly own deep expertise in a single category.

3️⃣ Take risks in voice and branding
Private label has to speak to everyone, across many categories, which means the voice usually gets watered down to be safe, polite, beige.

Bottom line: 

Private label is powerful, but brands can break through by being braver, weirder, and more human. Lean into your messy beginnings and real/relatable story, specialize so you become the authority, and don’t be afraid to get loud, hyper specific, or cheeky (in ways that fit). That’s how you build trust and stand out. 


Big thanks to The Food Institute host Chris Campbell and the expert speakers for such an insightful conversation.

The rise of Private Label and how brands can differentiate

Always feels great when hard work leads to a shiny award! 🏆 Many thanks to Synbiotic Health for understanding that B2B doesn't have to be beige and boring. 🔆 Cheers!

We are thrilled to announce we’ve been selected as a winner in Graphic Design USA’s Health & Wellness Showcase for our brand identity system for Synbiotic Health.

The identity is born out of their brand positioning, which we developed, reflecting their groundbreaking work in the fields of probiotic and microbiome science. The system combines precise, geometric design with vibrant colors, symbolizing vitality, optimism, and nature. The updated brand identity reinforces their expertise and innovation in the probiotic space.

The system can be seen here: https://lnkd.in/gRFWGVUy

See the full case study here: https://lnkd.in/g6ujJg5u

We are so grateful for our partnership with the team at Synbiotic Health and excited to share this win with them!

May all your packages have a second life as pretty as this.

When a friend brought me flowers in an upcycled package, I got the warm-and-fuzzies and thought wow, she really gets me.

Then I started thinking about the opportunity hiding here...

If brands encouraged reuse, they’d not only reduce waste but also get bonus visibility and stick around in their customers’ lives a whole lot longer.

Here are a few brands proving how fun and effective this can be:

💡IKEA used augmented reality to show how leftover cardboard can become toys, turning waste into imaginative play.
https://lnkd.in/gqsFAUdD

💡Harney & Sons highlights how their empty tea tins can live on as mini planters, candle holders, storage containers, and more instead of ending up in the trash.
https://lnkd.in/gzf5inzp

💡Samsung’s #FurTheWinSG challenge invites customers to upcycle their cardboard packaging into creative pet houses, giving waste boxes a fun and functional second life.
https://lnkd.in/g4YuURQP

The solution can also be super simple, with just a mention of "reuse me as a vase", or perhaps a QR code that leads to more creative ideas.

If you’ve seen other brands doing this well, I’d love to hear about them.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Big thanks to David Endersen for capturing the impact of our Jovial refresh.

MD of White Bear | Transforming challenger brands

27% increase in sales with no incremental marketing spend.

After 10 years of trading and a widening portfolio, Jovial Foods sought to evolve its brand and messaging.

3 key areas jumped out:

1/ They had multiple products all performing well in isolation, but lacked a coherent portfolio

2/ Messaging hierarchy was not well defined, with multiple claims competing on pack.

3/ Taste appeal could improve in a category where it is not well utilised.

𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗮𝗿-𝗴𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁.

Here's what they did:

✅ Dialled up appetite appeal
✅ Information hierarchy simplified for faster scanning
✅ Watercolour Italian landscape refined

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁:

🔥69% of consumers preferred the new design.
📈27% sales increase post-launch.

A solid example of refinement, evolution, and the compounding effect of consistent messaging and appetite appeal.

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➕ Follow for more on brand growth and design effectiveness

If 2024 said “go big” and 2025 said “optimize,” 2026 might say…

prove it.

I value reports like Grubhub Delivered that go beyond observations and bring real-world data to the table (pun fully intended). I find it especially insightful to see what shifted from the previous year, revealing where food trends may be headed for CPG brands in 2026.

Here’s my thought process.

➡️ 2024 was indulgence. More was better.
Bigger flavors, extra toppings, more protein, more caffeine, more customization. Orders were expressive and playful, driven by craveability and comfort rather than function. Escapism was in, and food was more about pleasure than performance.

➡️ 2025 was about optimization.
“Foodmaxxing” every bite for nutrition, function (and sometimes aesthetic) payoff. Nutrition-first ordering took center stage, focused on protein, gut health, and energy. Beans went mainstream, signaling the “fibermaxxing” to come for CPG. Drinks especially started stacking benefits beyond hydration, including better sleep, more energy, inner calm, better focus, improved digestion, clearer skin, thicker hair, more joy…

Which makes me wonder if 2026 will bring functional fatigue. When everything promises so much, consumers may get cynical.

If 2024 was “more,” and 2025 was “smarter,” maybe 2026 will demand foods with benefits backed up by more evidence, data, and transparency.

I’m not suggesting functional foods are going away, or that consumers will stop caring about benefits. But the bar may get raised. 

Credibility and clarity could outweigh buzzwords and cleverness.

Just a hunch. What do you think?

SmartyPants Vitamins

Senior Project Manager - Product Development

Children’s House Montessori School of Whitefish

Board Member

MeriCal®

•Lead team of Account (Project) Managers to efficiently and effectively commercialize new Dietary Supplement product launches and transitions (change controls) for our Contract CPG, MLM and FDMC Retail customers
•Create, manage & execute project timelines in development process & plant trials between customer and internal Product Development & Sales teams for complex Dietary Supplement products (dry-dosage & gummies)
•Troubleshoot and find solutions when critical deliverables are at risk during both product development and commercialization phases
•Partner and collaborate with peers in Sales, Innovation, Technical Operations, Supply Chain, Operations and Quality to deliver high-quality product to our customers, delivering against key milestones
•Liaison between customer and internal teams to communicate product specifications, changes and expectations
•Implemented and manage onboard/offboard, launch, transition & discontinuation processes
•Harmonized roles & responsibilities and commercialization processes between our two plants
•Collaborate & develop innovation platform presentations for customer meetings by analyzing data & trends, establishing need-development and creating product concepts that meet those key needs
•Implemented company’s first marketing strategy to focus on developing & launching products with high growth potential with both our FDMC Retail partners & Contract CPG partners
•Responsible for internal corporate marketing such as branding, tradeshows, website & PR

Director of Project Management (&Marketing)

•	Responsible for Sales, Forecasting, Product Management & Performance for two Retail Customers (#1 global retailer & top specialty)
•	Launched 100+ new Private Label turnkey SKU’s to Retail Customers (across all FDMC customers)
•	Collaborated with Innovation to develop & deliver innovative products to the Retail Private Label shelf

Marketing Manager

•	Assisted Executive VP of Retail Sales and Director of Sales & Marketing to manage Retail Private Label business (market research, product development, sales support, profit improvement strategies, customer service)
•	Managed forecasted inventory and collaborated with Planning and Operations to maintain steady supply

Marketing Coordinator

-Managed multiple customer accounts in the contract and turn-key packaging department in the dietary supplements industry.
-Daily communication with accounts
-Production planning
-Purchasing
-Inventory management
-Distribution
-Customer service

Customer Service

Stewarts'​ Vineyard

Assist master wine maker in production of California boutique wine, as well as sales, marketing and event support. Processes include: farming, harvest, crush, punch downs, fermentation, press, racking, bottling and all other steps involved in the fermentation and aging processes. 

Stewarts' Vineyard is a family owned vineyard/winery located in Yorba Linda, CA. We produce approximately 300 cases per year and have won numerous awards and recognition accross California.  Each bottle is made with loving care. 

Drink local. Drink Stewarts' Vineyard.

www.stewartsvineyard.com

Assistant Wine Maker

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

-Event Marketing
-Customer Service
-Donor/Volunteer Relations
-Hispanic Donor/Volunteer Relations

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Carrie Dufour

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The Battle

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Jaime Yacko

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Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Carrie Dufour's LinkedIn Performance

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