Bulletproof Heroes the Ampersand in Tate & Lyle New Identity
By unpacking the science behind Tate&Lyle's work, the identity captures the balance between nature and innovation, while an AI-image generator empowers employees to play with the visuals.
For 165 years, Tate & Lyle has been one of the best-known names on UK supermarket shelves. But a lot has changed in that time, and it’s moved on from selling standalone ingredients like syrups and treacles, to helping other makers create healthier products using sweeteners, fibres and plant-based solutions.
To signal this shift and their ambitions for the future, Tate & Lyle collaborated with London-based brand agency Bulletproof for a new identity. The time was ripe for change, as the old brand had started to feel dated.
“The old logo was very much what I call ‘Sunday Times,’ it had a huge amount of credibility and gravitas, but it looked like it belonged to a different era,” says Helen Bass, global head of marketing and insights at Tate & Lyle. “We were really keen to drive it forward.”
The business had also recently acquired nature-based ingredients company CP Kelco, so the brand had to welcome a new chapter in Tate & Lyle’s journey, all while driving internal culture, as the two workforces came together.
“Previously, the brand wasn’t really seen as a strategic growth driver,” says Bass. “But the acquisition allowed us to step back and ask how our identity could truly reflect who we are – how we talk to customers, engage our employees, and show up to our investor community in the future.”
Tate & Lyle sought an identity that captured innovation without losing warmth. Each of its inventive products is derived from natural ingredients, so this intersection of science and nature became key to telling a more human story.
“The brief was very clear – this wasn’t just a marketing exercise,” says Bass. “The new brand had to be something that sits at the beating heart of our organisation.”
To uncover the idea that would anchor the project, the Bulletproof team immersed itself in the science that underpins everything Tate & Lyle creates. David Beare, executive creative director at Bulletproof, likens this process to “an actor getting into character.”
The team almost “had to become scientists,” he says. “We had to understand, at a granular level, what Tate & Lyle actually does in order to unlock the brief and push the creativity.”
Things clicked when they arrived at the “power of &,” focusing on the ampersand in the wordmark as a symbol to carry both meaning and message.
“Tate & Lyle is a business built on connection – on bringing things together to create something greater than the sum of its parts,” says Beare.
“That idea naturally led us to the ampersand. It symbolises collaboration and curiosity – a constant ‘and what next?’ mindset that keeps the business pushing, questioning and evolving. It couldn’t have been a more fitting idea for a company bringing two worlds, and now two businesses, together.”
The ampersand served as a meaningful bridge to the brand idea – Science, Solutions & Society – capturing how science drives innovation, and how those real-world solutions, in turn, shape our relationship with food.
This focal idea, as Bass puts it, brings clarity to the business. “Everyone can see themselves in it,” she says. “It’s not just for our scientists – our commercial teams, marketers, finance, and HR all understand the part they play in bringing it to life. It’s become the structure for how we talk about our business, which is exactly what makes it such a hard-working brand idea.”
It’s best reflected in a series of snappy idents that trace the journey from the microscopic world of ingredients, through the solutions they enable, to the bigger picture of how those innovations shape everyday life.
The tagline – Science, Solutions & Society – provides the creative scaffolding for the idents, offering internal teams a guiding framework as the brand continues to evolve.
A diagonal cut, lifted from the shape of the ampersand, appears across brand assets as a recurring graphic device that breaks up content and adds cohesion.
This visual language is supported by a custom “workhorse” typeface that gives the brand an ownable voice, and an AI-powered ampersand generator – created for the employee portal – that helps embed the brand within internal culture.
The generator allows employees to create a personalised, downloadable ampersand, an asset that’s already proving to be a powerful conversation starter.
“One of our strategic challenges was bringing two businesses together,” says Bass. “What’s brilliant about the ampersand generator is how naturally it sparks connection – whether it’s colleagues commenting on each other’s backgrounds in meetings, or customers asking about it. It opens the door to telling the story of Tate & Lyle.”
But in creating the generator, the Bulletproof team had to make decisions about how to use AI responsibly and effectively.
“There are appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI, and this felt like a really meaningful one,” says Beare.
“We were careful to use only owned imagery and content. Initially, we used AI to help visualise conceptual thinking for the idents, but that process unlocked its potential as a generative tool, capable of creating multiple expressions of the ampersand.”
More than ensuring the brand lived beyond glossy brochures, the generator brought employees directly into the conversation.
“Brands often feel quite top-down – something created by marketing and pushed out in the hope that it lands,” says Beare.
“With this, we saw an opportunity for every individual at Tate & Lyle to generate their own version of the ampersand, something personal that helps them connect with the business and see their role within it. It’s meaningful because they’ve created it themselves, rather than being handed something to use. That difference is powerful.”
