Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup rebrand drops dead lion

The image of a dead lion being swarmed by bees is to be dropped from some of Lyle's Golden Syrup packaging.

A rebranded image of a lion's head with a single bee will feature on products, including the firm's plastic syrup and dessert bottles.

But the classic Lyle's Golden Syrup tin will be excluded from the rebrand, keeping its more than 150-year-old packaging design.

The company said it was to refresh its appeal to modern shoppers.

The original logo, which includes the biblical quotation "out of the strong came forth sweetness", is the world's oldest unchanged brand packaging, holding a Guinness World Record, having remained nearly identical since 1888, the brand said.

Lyle's well-known Victorian-style tins were first introduced by Scottish businessman Abram Lyle more than 150 years ago, the same year as the first electric railway.

According to the company's website, Lyle had strong religious views, which is why the logo depicts the story of Samson from the Old Testament, in which Samson killed an attacking lion, and later noticed a swarm of bees had formed a comb of honey in the carcass.

He later turned this into a riddle: "Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness."

The second half of the quote was used on the original branding of Lyle's Golden Syrup.

The classic tin will be excluded from the rebrand

The rollout of the new packaging design - a golden illustration of a lion's head - will begin this month and continue throughout the year across its full-sized bottles, breakfast bottles, dessert toppings and golden syrup portions, Lyle's Golden Syrup said.

The company's brand director James Whiteley said the firm needed to show consumers it was moving with the times and meeting their current needs.

"Our fresh, contemporary design brings Lyle's into the modern day, appealing to the everyday British household while still feeling nostalgic and authentically Lyle's," he said.

Helen Edwards, adjunct associate professor of marketing at London Business School, said the rebrand would help to reduce the risk of excluding potential buyers.

"The story of it coming from religious belief could put the brand in an exclusionary space, especially if it was to go viral on X or TikTok," she told the BBC.

"But hanging on to some of the original branding is a good idea as people tend to remember brands through visual codes - the green colour, the lion - which remind people 'that's the product I buy, that's the one I like.'"

Lyle's Golden Syrup is owned by Tate & Lyle Sugars.