Waitrose | The Gastronaut

Following Christmas’ festive romcom 'The Perfect Gift', our next campaign for Waitrose shifts into sci-fi with a bold new campaign: 'The Gastronaut'.

The film tells the story of a food lover astronaut Michael existing in space, where food is merely fuel. But for Michael, food is a way of life - and he'll go to great lengths for it. The creative dramatises the ‘food vs fuel’ debate, positioning Waitrose as the ‘Home of Food Lovers’.

To ground the cosmic concept in authenticity, we collaborated with food photographer Aaron Tilley to shoot every element for real. Individual flakes of salt and cracked pepper became distant stars. A specially moulded spaghetti structure was engineered to create the campaign’s striking 'black hole’ centrepiece, ensuring every detail remained tangible, tactile and unmistakably food.

For motion, we reconstructed each layout in After Effects, separating every component into a 3D plane. A roaming camera moves through the scene- drifting past constellations of seasoning and celestial ingredients -before gravitating toward the spaghetti, creating an immersive journey through space.