My Favourite Brands as a Food Photographer

Oct 14

Over the past few weeks, we’ve had the pleasure of connecting with some of Canada’s most ambitious, growth-oriented brands—Organika Health, Kula Kitchen, Oome Tofu, and Spread Em Kitchen.

These incredible companies aren't just known for their top-tier products, but also for their intentional and strategic investment in high-quality visuals that truly capture the essence of their brands. From bright and playful to sleek and minimalistic, these brands understand how essential it is to have visuals that tell their story and resonate with their audience.

What we find inspiring is how each of these brands—whether newer or more established—has embraced visuals as a crucial part of their growth strategy. They’ve shown that when you invest in thoughtful, consistent content, it elevates your brand perception, connects you with your audience, and ultimately drives business success. So, we’re sharing their journeys, their approach to visuals, and how they’ve crafted strong, cohesive brand identities.

Q1. At What Point Did You Invest in Visuals you have now, and Why?

Miki, Founder, Oome Tofu: Yeah, from the very beginning, within reason, we've chosen to invest more in visuals than perhaps other new CPG brands might. This decision was heavily influenced by our brand story and my personal background. Being half-Japanese, I have always appreciated beautiful packaging and aesthetics. Growing up, family trips to Japan instilled a love and appreciation for beautiful packaging beautiful merchandising - all of that. That's why I knew right away that packaging and the overall presentation were going to be key to our brand. I wanted our product to stand out on the shelf—something premium, polished, and appealing to consumers who appreciate quality. So with that, you also have to build out the rest of the assets that are going to complement that. So the photography and the food styling and the website, I think those all play into each other and and they are all greater than their individual parts. And so that's why, even though we are still incredibly bootstrapped and are still doing it in a very conservative way, but within reason, I've chosen for us to invest in quality visuals.

Aaron, CEO of Organika Health: I want to say probably 2017-ish. You know, Instagram was kind of at that heyday, and people were consuming information a lot differently. So making sure we were on point with visuals was important. Most, if not everybody, is pretty much a visual person. We wanted to make sure we had a strong presence there and did the best we could.

Mellisa, Founder, Spread Em Kitchen: Mellisa I like the word that you use invest because in a way, I think that is a barrier for a lot of brands, including us. Actually, we're quite we're perceived as quite a large business, but really there's six people in production. But I think part of the success of my business has been the leanness of it all and the natural creativity that I have, that I'm able to do a lot of things myself, or to be a very precise art director when I do so.

I would say that it's really expensive to hire someone to do the pictures or the videos and it's not that brands don't value it you. It's just out of reach.

And I think part of it would be creating a business case, either around the investment on how it's going to generate revenue - tying it to Facebook ads or things that are gonna get money into the company, or in another way. To be honest, I haven't been able to get it together because something keeps popping up, a fire over here, this over there. But one thing we are lacking is time, right?

Asha, founder, Kula Foods: I knew we would need to do content on our own for the first year since the company is self funded. We invested in photography and that has been critical to tell our stories and with visuals to attract potential customers and supporters. Asha, Kula Foods: We started investing in professional photography from our 2nd year of business and continues each year.

Q2. What challenges or struggles made you realize the need to invest in professional content?

Miki, Oome Tofu: Yeah, I think when, when a consumer is looking at all of their options, you have only a few moments to really captivate them. And for us, being a brand new product, we thought about things like: what's our unique selling proposition? What are we bringing to the table? Of course, I know that our product has really unique properties. I think it tastes amazing. But first we have to draw the consumer in so that they can try what's on the inside. And so I really believe that our packaging has been able to draw the consumer in. They've been curious. They pick it up. They're like, oh, this looks really nice. They'll give it a first try and once they tried it, the product has delivered on its promise. And I think that's where we get that repeat sort of purchase from our consumers, because not only are we appealing on the outside, but then we're delivering on the product itself on the inside. And so I think that's really why we've decided to position ourselves the way we are. This decision comes from understanding that aesthetics are a vital gateway to getting new consumers to try our product, which then leads to repeat purchases based on product quality.

Asha, Kula Foods: The need for professional content was to save the time, and business growth. I am not a professional photographer or videographer so I knew we needed to outsource wherever possible. At first we captured content on our own and we're challenged the first year to keep up with operations and building quality photos and videos. We collaborated with local content creators and creatives who offered accessible pricing for smaller projects. Overtime, we worked with the same creatives who invested in us.

Q3. How important is it to have a marketing strategy before or after investing in visual needs?

Miki, Oome Tofu: I knew that I wanted us to have beautiful packaging. However, I think that we also, I was very fortunate to be paired with somebody that was really talented and was able to bring that vision to life. First we came out with a brand guideline, and then from there, the packaging really evolved.

Tyler Quarles is the person that came out with the brand. He heard the brand story, understood the aesthetic that we were really going for. And with that, he came out with the brand guideline. He did the packaging, and our first version of our website, so it was all very cohesive.

So yes, we did have a bit of a foundation that we could anchor all of our decisions around. We knew what the colour palettes were and the pantones and the font and all of that stuff.

The marketing and the social media was really the most intimidating part of it for me. I was sort of trying to do it by myself, we had a little bit of family that was helping us out. I'm getting a little bit more comfortable especially with the storying part too, as the founder.

I'm just observing our social media, and even the food styling and the photography, that's something that I just search what other brands do. If I really love their aesthetic, I find out who's doing their photography. Are they within our reach? And that's really how I sort of came about the the photography side and like and then the social media side, really was just through lots of networking and like, doing doing different events, meeting people that are supporting the social media accounts of other brands, and then just developing that relationship and now I have somebody that really helps us out. Yeah, it's all very organic.

Aaron, Organika Health: Yes, our marketing calendar is set pretty early, so the team essentially just follows that. If there’s something trending or something unique, the team will jump on it, which they're good at. That helps us stay relevant by always being dynamic.

Mellisa, Spread Em Kitchen: Yeah, it was a bit of both. So we never do anything to the letter. We do like a brief that's sort of more high level, with a feeling, with a with an intention in mind.

Asha, Kula Foods: It was important to have vision of and idea of our brand story. We took the time to work on strategy first before investing. Without strategy, the cost can be higher than necessary and often causes project delays.

Photographer: Abby Wiseman
Brand & Packaging: Tyler Quarles

Photography: Abby Wiseman
Brand & Packaging: Tyler Quarles

Q4. How did investing in professional content impact your business/How long does it take to see results?

Aaron, Organika Health: I believe t’s how you engage, right? If your post or visuals are engaging, people naturally want to keep clicking. The biggest thing is just creating that curiosity. Once you have that curiosity within people, you can do a lot of things. I believe short-form video has always been a huge winner for us.

In e-commerce, it’s pretty much right away. If you're not capturing the consumer immediately and they're not buying, it’s very rare they come back later. A lot of it is impulse buying. On social media, you can see the engagement right away. That's what we look for—what the engagement level is and how it works.

Asha, Kula Foods: It was a-lot easier to work with professional to tell our stories, share beautiful and visuals that we were able to share digitally and in prints. Some of the beautiful images have been shared in major publications in Canada.

Q5. How often do you need content for e-commerce and social media?

Miki, Oome Tofu: Because we're so bootstrapped, maybe once a year we've been able to add to that repertoire of food styling as we evolve our recipes. And for example, if there's a sandwich that I love making, and when I take photos of it, it just doesn't land very well. So I ask my photographer, can you just use this recipe and do a photo shoot with this so that I can create a recipe card and it's gonna look beautiful.

Aaron, Organika Health: We work on pumping out content every week. Nowadays, you need to be like a content house that’s a brand to keep people coming back. There's so much distraction. We’re in the distraction age, and all of us are born with a phone in hand. Rarely does anyone not take their phone out during the day. That’s how we look at it—we’ve got to make sure we’re on top of it and doing it properly.

Q6. Did you prefer to investing in smaller content batches (e.g., e-commerce or social media images), or did you go straight into large-scale projects getting all content together? What guided your decision?

Miki, Oome Tofu: Yeah, we did, two sort of separate components for the initial launch of our product. We did a sort of family photography session and lifestyle photos with with food and with the tofu and all of that stuff. And we've been able to utilize those assets for a lot of our website and depending on different events and on social media.

And then the other part of it was really focused on the food styling. And so I made sure we did one batch of that where it was just the packaging photos, so that we have that for, you know, retailers and onboarding and the professional side of it. And then we also did the food styling for our three SKUs, so we had that material to work with on our website as well. So those were the two components. And then, you know, maybe once a year we've been able to add to that repertoire of food styling as we evolve our recipes.

Melissa, Spread Em Kitchen: I did a batch, but looking back on it, I would much prefer to do it based on usage, so as and when I need it or the need arises. You can have a package that's once a year or twice a year or quarterly or example... you do website photos that you might switch up or refresh based on seasonality or something, resize it and tie that to some kind of a campaign... So, like, let's say for us, we might want to then use those same visuals for the landing page to some social media posts, but not too many. Like not trying to batch too much.

Asha, Kula Foods: We prefer investing in smaller batches to manage capacity and efficiency.

Q7. Do you prefer working with a single creator for all content needs, or do you hire specialists for different areas, like product, food photography for e comm, personal branding photos, and social media content like recipes? Why?

Miki Oome Tofu: I think that, as we grow and scale and our needs become more specific, and also our budget I think that we would be open to diversifying the source of our assets right now, because we're so bootstrapped. We have money for just like, one fall photo shoot of our products. And I really like, for example, there's a sandwich that I love making, and when I take photos of it, it just doesn't land very well. And so I'm like, can you just use this recipe and do photo shoot with this so that I can create a recipe card and it's gonna look beautiful. But I think as we grow and as our needs change, we're not married to a certain person, I think it's all about just continuing to deliver on, really high quality and yeah, as our needs evolve, as relationships change. We're very open to it.

Aaron, Organika Health: No, we definitely use a variety of different people. You need the people in-house, but it's too much content to rely on one person to manage everything. For big campaigns or priority launches, we definitely go big. That’s how we approach it.

Mellisa, Spread Em Kitchen: I mean, it will be good if they could do multiple disciplines. But at the same time, I understand and respect this idea of niching and like, okay, you only do one thing, but having a roster of people to do the other stuff, I think would go a long way.

Asha, Kula Foods: We work with different experts in their field, this has worked well for us since over the year, products and services have evolved. Working with different creators also opens a wealth of creative opportunities.

Q8. How do you balance pricing with the vision you have when hiring photographers/videographers? Was there a specific value you were looking for that justified the investment?

Miki, Oome Tofu: Yeah, the person we work with really just proposed what her fee structure is and it felt reasonable. And so, we were able to just make that happen and work with her. And I think that's why, I've tended to work less with big agencies and more with somebody freelance, because they have less overhead. They are going to be more affordable and something that we can manage.

Aaron, Organika Health: Yes, if the visuals don’t align with your brand or guidelines, you can’t proceed. We’re not going to suddenly become the funniest brand on Instagram because it’s not who we are. That's just not our brand ethos or. , so just staying true to who your brand is and making sure you're creating everything aligned with; it helps you, not be somebody who you're not ready to be.

Asha, Kula Foods: We considered the value from sales, time and marketing to investing in professional content.

Q9. What's a fair investment range for your e-commerce and social media images like you have and video?

Aaron, Organika Health: For us, it depends on how big we want to go with something. If it’s a bigger priority, we’ll do more. We try to keep it fresh in that regard.

Mellisa, Spread Em Kitchen: I mean, it is really so hard to say. I will say that mentally, just like when you go to the grocery store and you're trying to buy a snack, and say it's like, the best quality thing. Let's say that if it's $9.99, you probably will give it a shot, even if you think like, oh, it's a little bit out of your regular budget for such a snack. But if it's $10.99, even though that's $1 more, you're like, you'll keep putting it off. So as an analogy for that, I think there are mental barriers for people like me, in a sense, so I'd say there's, a range I'd be willing to pay for like $2000 but $1,999 for something. If I value already and I know that they have good quality and I just want to dip my toe to see if you know, could this work out as, like, an intro to this person's content. And then the next price range would probably be like, yeah, like, around $4,000 but $3999.

And to be kind of more clear on what I'd be getting out of that.

Asha, Kula Foods: This varies based on project and products- They range anywhere from $1200+ per project.

Q10. What qualities in a photographer or videographer made you feel confident, like a no-brainer that they were the right choice, even if their investment was higher than expected?

Miki, Oome Tofu: Just the quality of the photos and communicating well. You can only judge that based on someone's portfolio of work that they've already done. And then, I think it's a fit with the person, because you have to be able to communicate. There has to be a level of trust where, if they say that they're going to get this amount of assets done and it's going to be completed by this timeline; I'm relying on this to get things done. So I think that there's that trust and the ability to communicate back and forth, you know, things happen. And if we have good synergy, and being able to take a little bit of feedback, For example, if something just didn't land the way that I had visualized. Some of it might be on me because I didn't communicate very well, and some of it might be on her, because I was told it would land. So I think it's those two pieces. I think in terms of the experience - deliverables, the way that the assets are handed over, like being able to download all the assets that just lives there; so I know that I can turn to that whenever I need to. Also conversations around ownership of the assets. I think that's really important to talk about. And so just the experience of transparency and just understanding, where all of that lands, I think that that's part of that whole experience.

Aaron, Organika Health: Yes, I believe pricing is a concern for any business, but not the only thing. If they have a good portfolio of the kind of the brand or guidelines that you aspire to be, its a great start. This makes it easier because, you're not creating something from scratch. They've done it to this style before, etc, and that's kind of how we look at it.

Mellisa, Spread Em Kitchen: Very crisp, clean and modern looking for my brand. Something that, you know, doess't look exactly the same work as their other clients. I don't want to look like all of them but be unique to my brand and brand personality. What I also like is the hyper focus, the color grading in a way that it's balanced. And, yeah, some modern things like, you know, the shadows that were really popular last year or whatever, that kind of thing.

Experience wise, I like a pretty methodical process like a couple calls, an idea of the visuals we're doing, talk about angles - 45, flat lay, how many of each etc. Even remotely approving images on shoot days, if I want to be a bit more hands on.

Asha, Kula Foods: There portfolio matches our brand - like colours and voice, offering, price, service experience. Visually appealing and brand aligned content, marketing opportunities its created.

Q11. What are some of the deal breakers or red flags when evaluating potential photographers, videographers?

Miki, Oome Tofu: I'm big on reliability. If we set a meeting outside of the scope of last minute emergencies or things happening, which I absolutely understand. Yeah, I have to be able to rely on that person to show up when they say they're going to show up and to deliver when they say they're going to deliver. For me, like red flags are having to reschedule over and over and having to change timelines over and over.

Aaron, Organika Health: I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily a red flag unless the person ghosts and is unreliable. It’s more on our own team to do the homework on what this person’s portfolio is and what they’re capable of. That way, we’re not reaching out to someone who doesn’t align with what we are trying to achieve.

Mellisa, Spread Em Kitchen: Not consistent work. Lots of times, people send me their portfolios but there'll only be like 5-10 of their best pictures. They're white glove. I always do extra research - see their IG, google them and expect to see different work. If there's not much choice on your website, I personally wouldn't like to proceed. The pictures don't always have to be perfect, but style has to be consistent. Lighting for us is an important criteria as well.

Asha, Kula Foods: Lack of portfolio, experience, delays, not flexible.

Q12. What advice would you give to other businesses considering investing in professional content?

Miki, Oome Tofu: My advice would be to think of photography and videography not as an expense, but as a long-term investment in your brand’s success. Quality visuals will differentiate you in the market, draw in customers, and help you build trust. Also, start small if you need to, but make sure you’re investing in people who understand your brand and can deliver content that elevates it.

Aaron, Organika Health: Just being aware of what message or medium you're trying to get out to, because, I think a lot of the times we try to do too much. If you are focused and always making sure you're prioritizing things that helps create value long term. You never want to be in a position where you are trying to do too much and then not be able to execute anything.

Mellsa, Spread Em Kitchen: Why we have quality visuals is that, I know our style and brand. Quality visuals just come from simplicity, crispness and great composition. Knowing whats in your heart you want to communicate. Like why you do what you do is key, because then your visuals will come naturally. Its more about that, but sometimes you overthink too...don't do that. Like u don't need to get like how i did years ago like i was obssesive - brand archetypes and info overload that sort of thing, because I like to know the why, pick things apart to be able to articulate myself better. But back to simplicity - just do what you do and make it look good.

Asha, Kula Foods: For anyone starting to consider working with a professional content creator, I would get clear on your strategy, set a budget and timeline. Look for ways to also work with new content creators.

Photographer: Doaa Jamal
Sauce design: Studio Prolific
Proteins design: Designful Hope Agency

It’s clear that these ambitious, growth-oriented brands are setting the standard when it comes to using visuals to build trust, enhance product perception, and drive business success. What stands out most is how each of them has invested in visuals that not only look stunning but also deeply reflect the heart and values of their brand. It’s about finding what works for your brand and embracing it with intention.

If you’re ready to achieve growth like these inspiring businesses and elevate your brand’s presence with stunning, brand- aligned visuals, we’d love to be your creative partner on that journey.

Together, we can craft stunning, high-quality content that tells your story, engages your audience, and helps your business thrive. Reach out, and let’s start creating something amazing for your brand.

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