For all of our Romanian readers, Salad Box is an extremely powerful name. For our readers from other countries who didn’t hear about Salad Box, prepare your appetite, because you will hear soon.

Salad Box is a Romanian chain of restaurants which offers an alternative way of eating: “a fresh and healthy meal in a box”.

The healthy lifestyle trend, together with the great work the management has done, helped Salad Box to grow in record time: in less than 6 years, Salad Box has expanded to 12 countries on three continents.

We dare to say that Salad Box is one of the Romania’s national prides. Since we are such a big fans of Salad Box products, and we love our job of finding the next international brand names, we were curious about how Salad Box name was born. So we’ve talked with Andreea Stan, the Marketing Manager of Salad Box and asked her to reveal us Salad Box naming strategy.

And here it is: the story of a name that will make history. Enjoy!

Namzya:     Salad Box is a name that communicates the company positioning so well. What is his story? How did you find it?  

Andreea Stan, Salad Box: We strongly believe that the name of a business tells more about it than anything else. We wanted a name that would express the concept of our company. Salad Box wasn’t “found” but rather created. We propose a healthy lifestyle. When people are thinking of something healthy, a salad pops into their heads. After finding the key word, we put our concept in a word. And there you have it “Salad Box” – a fresh and healthy meal in a box.

Namzya:       What were the main criteria you took into account when searching for the perfect name?  

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:  Searching for the perfect name it’s not easy. Especially when we think of its importance. I can honestly say that the key for finding it is vision. Therefore, we visualized what we wanted to say.

We offered a new idea of how to enjoy a quick and healthy meal. For that reason, we wanted to accentuate it with our business name. That was our main criteria when we created the name.

Namzya:       Most probably, Salad Box was chosen from a shortlist of names. Can you tell us what other names competed with Salad Box on the final list?

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:  You would be surprised to know that from the very beginning we thought of “Salad Box”. It was quite a complex process in finding the name that would explain so good our business concept. Of course that we had in mind other ideas too, but “Salad Box” was obviously the best out of all. I couldn’t say that there were names that competed with our final choice.

Namzya:      In less than 6 years, Salad Box has expanded to 11 countries on three continents. Right now, you do not own www.saladbox.com domain. Do you feel that this will be an impediment in the business development?

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:    Why would it be? Owning a www.saladbox.com domain wouldn’t change how our company is functioning. We have our domain .ro that indicates our country and also a domain .eu for Europe. Our franchises also have a domain following our main perspective such as saladbox.us, saladbox.it or saladbox.hu. Until now, our .ro domain didn’t interfere with how different aspects of our business are evolving and we don’t predict it will ever be the case.

Namzya:       You recently launched a new product line: ‘YoU+’ salads (e.g. YoU+Vitamins, YoU+Minerals, YoU+Omega3 etc.). What does ‘YoU+’ mean and how does it differentiate the line from the other products?

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:   Our product line “YoU+” salads means something more. When we thought of what we wanted to offer, we considered making it premium. When I say premium I’m referring to all the benefits one salad “You+” has. Each product we provide to our customers is created to give them the perfect healthy combination. As we grow, we are trying to bring on the market new healthy alternatives for what we offer, a fresh lunch. From this point of view, there will always be new products, different from the others, after all we are the number one salad specialist. 

Namzya:     All your products are named after internationally famous recipes, like Caesar Salad, Boston Salad etc. But one of your salads is called ‘Most wanted’. If this is the star product of Salad Box, what was the reason you called it generally ‘Most wanted’?

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:  The “Most Wanted” it really is the star product. We named it this way because our customers picked it themselves. I could say that it was created thanks to our clients and their choices. We discovered that our customers chose the combination of ingredients our “Most Wanted” salad has and self-declared it the star. We only embraced their choices and made it official.

Namzya:        Do you plan to transform it in the Salad Box signature in the future?

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:    Our “Most Wanted” already has its story. We created it thanks to our clients who chose the best combination. To transform it in the Salad Box signature in the future isn’t what we have in mind. We like diversity and having one product as a signature would be a little limited. For that reason we are planning to target a so-called signature from all our product range.

Namzya:        Salad Box is growing very fast. Do you plan to use an unitary naming strategy, by using the actual product names on each new market? Or do you take into account to adapt the product names to local culture?

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:  We’ve  already decided our naming strategy for each market, existing and new ones. We manage the same way our own locations with our franchises, from this point of view. We encourage our franchises to adapt the products to the local ingredients. As for the product names, we highly focus on keeping them the same for all our markets. Having a unitary naming strategy is the key for an international business. Our concept needs to be presented as we created it. Of course, the names will adapt to the language of the market, but they will be the same.

Namzya:         Besides salads, you have other product categories, like Desserts. Which is why products in this category are named using description of the ingredients: e.g. GREEK YOGURT WITH GRANOLA, BANANA AND HONEY?

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:    We try to focus on a larger product range. Step by step, we added other product categories. We decided to name them using description of the ingredients for the starting point. In the future, we plan to create the story for all our products, not only the salads. We consider that each product is special in its own way and has something good to offer. Therefore, we think that each should have a story and also an expressive name. And we are working on it as we speak.

Namzya:        When should we expect to a new product launching? Will it have the name of an existing recipe too, or should we expect to something completely new, like ‘YoU+” name line?

Andreea Stan, Salad Box:   We constantly evolve. Our team is focused on getting better every day. We bring changes to our business in order to keep it fresh, just like our products. We love new things and that is why we always try to bring new ideas to our concept. “YoU+” name line was a success and we loved the feedback from our customers. Therefore, our agenda has quite some fresh surprises. And yes, you should expect a new product launching. Soon!

Do you want a successful international business? Apply Salad Box’s strategy: feel the trends, adapt to them, innovate and never let the name on the last place. As Andreea said: “the name of a business tells more about it than anything else”.

Congratulations, Salad Box! We are proud of you for taking Romania’s name with you on your way to success.

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