The UK relaunch marks the debut of a Europe-wide strategy which will see improved recipes introduced at all Unilever's frozen food companies over the next year, and the fatherly Captain brought back as the brand icon for kids' ranges in each market. Recent campaigns had featured a younger version of the captain.
Over the next three months the range, including Fish Fingers, Chicken Nuggets, Chicken Dippers, Captain's Coins, and Vegetable Fingers, will be reformulated with strict limits on fat and salt content and no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives.
Products, including a tuna burger, a beef burger, a potato and cheese product and a veggie burger, will be introduced to the range from September.
Birds Eye marketing director Chris Pomfret said: "We have a responsibility as a business to sell decent food. We are the biggest food brand in Great Britain and we are synonymous with kids' food.
"Kids today have a tendency to be obese and are not eating the right things. We are not claiming to make health food, but seeking a compromise between 'cool food', as kids want, and 'good food', which mums want."
The ad campaign, created by HHCL and Partners, centres on the Captain and his shipmates, all children, who have washed up on Paradise Island where good food abounds. It will run across cinema and press as well as TV from July 1.
Pomfret said taking the Captain out of his ship and stationing him on an island allowed the campaign to expand beyond fish products.
In the first 30-second spot, the crew are forced to fight off a 'fish-finger pincher', who steals on to the island and tries to take their fish fingers. Further executions will follow in the autumn for Chicken Dippers and Tuna Burger, and in each spot the kids are the heroes.
New packaging across the range, designed by Springpoint, will feature key nutritional information depicted in speech bubbles.
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