Are Media today announces the re-branding of The Australian Women’s Weekly Food magazine to Cooking with The Australian Women’s Weekly, appealing to a broader audience of food and cooking fans.

Published 11 times a year, the September issue of Cooking with The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale from 30th August, features the new masthead, along with a refreshed cover and content design and follows extensive research and testing with Are Media’s Insiders Community group of food and cooking enthusiasts.

Resonating strongly with younger to mid-age demographics and those who identify as impassioned cooks, the design will be managed by The Weekly’s art team to ensure consistency with its parent brand, while still retaining the same content cooking fans have come to love.

Nicole Byers, editor-in-chief of The Australian Women’s Weekly said: “A key driver for the change was to set it apart from other brands in the market and provide a fresh approach for passionate food and cooking fans.”

“The Cooking with The Australian Women’s Weekly name also brings it closer to The Weekly’s primary brand and our other key properties, Easter with The Australian Women’s Weekly and Christmas with The Australian Women’s Weekly, and enables us to build out additional opportunities for  ‘…with The Australian Women’s Weekly’.

Online and social platforms will remain branded Women’s Weekly Food and continue to be the digital home for all The Weekly’s cooking brands, from the magazines to the much loved cookbooks. Since launching in 2018 these digital properties have built a strong and loyal audience.

The rebrand comes as Are Media reveals the latest exclusive insights and research on food with the launch of TRENDtalks: Food, a virtual expert panel discussion showcasing the emerging food trends marketers need to understand.

Hosted by former Masterchef finalist and deputy editor of Gourmet Traveller, Karlie Verkerk, TRENDtalks: Food heard from Dr Denise Hamblin, head of sensory at Kantar, on how food choices are being driven as Australians transition from a period of safety, security and conformity, to one of being empowered.

“When those changes in social values collide with the inability to travel and explore, what we do is start to explore different cuisines and cultures within the home,” Dr Hamblin said. “You can see that at a meal time… breaking the rules in terms of flavors and cuisine combinations and often we’re seeing this come through in different types of heat and spice, more complex textures and challenging textures, as well as more complex flavors.”

Danielle Walker, marketing and category manager at Goodman Fielder – in home baking, added: “We’re getting feedback from people who have tried ingredients such as yeast and its actually opened up a whole raft of cooking and baking inspiration for them. QR codes are also being utilised so much more in our everyday lives… and they are now being placed on product packaging and also marketing material, which actually is leading to more online video, more content and it’s also opening up digital to new audiences.”

Fran Abdallaoui, editor of Cooking with The Australian Women’s Weekly and food director of The Weekly said Are Media’s Food Language research showed Australians were also shifting to more conscious eating. “More than 80% of people preferred buying Australian wherever possible and two-thirds of those planned to keep buying Australian made after the pandemic is over,” she said. “When it comes to sustainability and eating, we found that over 70% are more carefully planning their families’ food requirements now to avoid wasting food.”

Cook and food stylist Sian Redgrave, winner of Foxtel’s first Great Australian Bake Off, said millennial were getting into the kitchen in ever greater numbers. “People have lacked a lot of confidence in my age demographic with cooking… and now people are just very adamant about even giving things a try and gaining confidence and it’s a really wonderful boost to even just see people give things a shot, because before that there was a lot of stigma around something being perfect.”

Elise Strachan, whose Instagram account @mycupcakeaddiction boasts one million followers and her show ‘The Sweet Life’ is airing on SBS Food, also added: “I don’t think that the status quo has shifted from the person that cooks the day to day meals, but I do think that each individual member of a family is starting to contribute things that maybe they saw on Tiktok, that’s small and achievable.”

Are Media has Australia’s biggest cross platform food network, reaching over 4.5 million women each month through brands including Gourmet Traveller, The Australian Women’s Weekly, Cooking with The Australian Women’s Weekly, Better Homes and Gardens, New Idea Food, Now to Love and Homes to Love.

To watch TRENDtalks: Food clickhere.