THE CLIENT
Eskort
THE BRIEF
Create107 extraordinary cakes for Eskort’s 107th birthday. As SouthAfrica’s leading antibiotic-free pork producer delivering quality you can trust since 1917, we were briefed to take it a step further – the cakes had to feature pork sausages and bacon, of course!
THE RESULT
Teaming up with Sweet LionHeart, we came up with six designs for sweet and savoury cakes that honoured the products on which Eskort’s early success was built.
“It’s not often a brand gets to celebrate a 107th birthday,” says Eskort Marketing Director Marcelle Pienaar. “And we wanted to do something epic to mark the occasion but also underpin it with a nod to who we are and where we have come from.”
Eskort was born in the small town of Estcourt in KwaZulu-Natal when nine farmers started the Farmers Cooperative Bacon Factory in 1917. It started making sausages in 1920, and they won a gold medal at that year’s Rand Easter Show.
These days, Eskort has more than 300 world-class pork products, ranging from high-end fresh cuts to convenience meals and staples. But Gold Medal pork sausages remain a favourite with South African consumers, and more than 300 of them decorated our savoury focaccia cakes, which had an onion jam base and cream cheese icing. Bacon decorations were dotted around the vanilla buttercream icing covering the sweet vanilla cakes.
The delicious creations didn’t just stay on display. Thanks to the efforts of SA Harvest, they were distributed to Salt River High School in Cape Town and the 123 Movement, a non-profit company that aims to bridge the gap between the disadvantaged and the privileged by eradicating hunger and purposelessness.
“Birthdays are a big family occasion, and these cakes were an expression of the family values that have sustained Eskort over the years,” says Pienaar. “Many people call us a ‘family corporate’, so celebrating our birthday with delicious cakes seemed very fitting. The cakes were a huge hit, and they proved that with imagination and innovation there’s really no limit to the versatility of pork.
Shoot production, concept and creative direction: Studio H
Culinary production: Studio H
Cake decoration: Sweet LionHeart
Stills shoot: Nikki Symons
Video: Jeff Moffat
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