Food Union's platform launch for Year-Round Success and Customer Excellence
Food Union's new robust commerce platform is now live in Denmark with an aim to deliver seamless customer experiences and enable year-round success by overcoming the constraints of seasonality.
Food Union, an expert in ice cream and dairy products, has decided to venture into the frozen food market and invest in establishing a pan-European direct-to-consumer business.
The new brand, Fråst, established based on Hjem-IS in Denmark and Isbilen in Norway, is one of the group’s key strategic projects in this regard.
The purpose is to increase revenue by utilising the sales channels Food Union already has, to distribute a broader assortment of non-seasonal products and include various high-quality frozen products such as snacks, pizza, lasagna and frozen desserts.
Having immersed ourselves in the study of various models of audience interaction, product delivery and the frozen food market, we've decided to spin off this business into an independent one under the name 'Fråst'. We are in the very early stages of the project, but with support from partners like IMPACT Commerce, we aim to create something truly unique and appealing to consumers.
To succeed in this endeavor, Food Union needed a robust and scalable digital infrastructure geared for expansion – with a new commerce platform as the first step.
The new platform is now live in the Danish market, with expansion into the Norwegian market scheduled for the end of December. It seamlessly integrates with Food Union’s distribution channels, transforming the business fundamentally.
This partnership sets the stage for Food Union's ambitious plans to enter additional markets with a scalable technical infrastructure. Now that we’re live, we’re working to test and refine the setup, so that’s it’s ready for the high season of 2024. At the same time, we're preparing to introduce even more advanced digital capabilities to fulfill our vision of a unified commerce business
MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF SEASONAL DEMAND
Given the seasonality of their business, the time-to-market for the project was of utmost importance.
The collaboration with IMPACT Commerce began in May, and the project was executed swiftly, completed within five months. This accelerated timeline allows Food Union to test and optimise the platform ahead of the high-demand season.
“We knew that we came to IMPACT Commerce with an almost impossible task with the tight time-to-market and the need for new processes across the entire setup. Yet, they managed to deliver a state-of-the-art solution, within the specified budget and timeframe. Having worked in the digital arena for 26 years, this is the most effective project I’ve been a part of,” Hannu acknowledges.
Our next steps will be refining and tuning the platform to ensure it’ll run seamlessly during the upcoming high season.
TRANSFORMING COMMERCE WITH A COMPOSABLE SETUP
With a best-of-suite composable approach, the commerce solution successfully leverages Food Union’s established sales channels, enabling both planned deliveries, pick-ups at specified locations and impulse purchases, as the traditional ice cream sales model.
The technology stack includes Commercetools, Umbraco CMS, email marketing through Voyado, search, product recommendations powered by Relewise and Adyen as payment provider.
Food Union’s new composable commerce setup enhances the overall efficiency, scalability and flexibility of the platform, facilitating continuous improvements and development. We already have more projects in the pipeline, including a new Order Management System and an extended personalised marketing automation setup
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