Eat with your eyes!
The importance of
strong food photography for your Bakery.
The term ‘eat with our eyes’ was first recorded in 1936 by the Romans, referring to how we use our eyes and brain to connect experience and previous memories and determine what would taste good.
In today’s digitally savvy world, the role of food photography is more influential than ever before, with bakeries using social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to entice new consumers.
More so, creative photography and content strategy is not only encouraging consumers to purchase food but also to engage in the experience.
In a recent survey by News Limited, 54% of 18-24-year-olds admitted to taking pictures of their food before eating it, often sharing across social channels and tagging in the supplier.
At Zeelandia UK, photography is a key part of our communications strategy, undertaking regular photoshoots and creative bakery days to highlight the use of our ingredients in bakery products, for use on our social media, product literature, and website.
In today’s inspiration piece, we share some top tips on how you can embrace more photography for your bakery /food business.
Make photography part of the process, not an afterthought.
We fully understand the time pressures of working in bakery business and often photography can be the last thing on our minds, but we encourage you to see it more as a crucial element to an NPD (New Product Development) process.
Whether you have a new product launching in your bakery, have a promotional offer, or are just test baking, creating and sharing strong photography with your audience will help drive sales.
Sometimes, a good-quality phone camera is enough
While some food businesses will have budgets to plan coordinated professional food photography, we appreciate not all bakers will have this option.
However, in 2024 there is much greater accessibility to high-quality food photos through our mobile phone cameras paired with a tripod, which can also be edited with low-cost applications.
This can be a particularly handy method when there are shorter deadlines for photography.
What should we consider for our photoshoot?
Here is a handy list of things to think about when photographing your food;
- How fresh is the food item and when is the best time to photograph it?
- What is the purpose of the shot and how does this influence photo orientation?
- How are we displaying the goods and what props are required?
- Do we have appropriate lighting?
Picturing who is behind the food!
While eating with our eyes refers to food, metaphorically attraction to your bakery business may not just come from photos of food, but also photos that celebrate team culture and values.
Be that a snap of a team member hard at work in the kitchen, a well-being exercise, or even a group team shot, sharing photography that demonstrates your food business values can build greater trust and awareness in the brand – while providing additional content.
