Executive Summary

Gourmet Foods International (GFI) is dedicated to being the preeminent solution for distributing and educating specialty foods to all consumer segments. The company has a strategic national footprint with ten distribution centers across the United States. In the last decade, it has dramatically increased its scale when it comes to physical presence, supply chain, and global sourcing capabilities. GFI was now looking to replicate the same growth over the digital commerce channel with a long-term vision to establish a marketplace for the food service segment.

McFadyen Digital followed 35 years of ecommerce best practices to guide GFI through a phased approach that involved analyzing the client’s existing commerce channels, customer needs, and market needs in order to create the next generation of specialty food ordering experience.

The end result is a modern ecommerce site built upon the Adobe Commerce Cloud platform. This new site provides a fast and enjoyable buying experience for customers and a more flexible and efficient commerce channel that gives the GFI team room to grow.

About the Client

Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Gourmet Foods International is a full-service wholesale specialty distributor. GFI carries domestic and imported artisan products and operates warehouses throughout the southwestern United States, including Georgia and Florida. It caters to many customers, including retailers, restaurants, hotels, and cruise lines. It has a distribution network of over 2,000 suppliers and 6000 brands.

McFadyen Digital followed 35 years of ecommerce best practices to guide GFI through a phased approach that involved analyzing the client’s existing commerce channels, customer needs, and market needs in order to create the next generation of specialty food ordering experience.

The end result is a modern ecommerce site built upon the Adobe Commerce Cloud platform. This new site provides a fast and enjoyable buying experience for customers and a more flexible and efficient commerce channel that gives the GFI team room to grow.

The Challenge

• The customer experience for business customers was an antiquated manual process that relied heavily upon interactions with GFI sales reps in order to complete the process. Once the order was entered into the system, the customer had very little forward visibility.
• The existing technology architecture didn’t allow workflow flexibility and customization needed to expand into new categories, shipping, and fulfillment networks. It was purpose-built and inflexible.
• Aging technology was limiting scalability and prohibiting the kind of growth GFI was anticipating, especially when it came to implementing a headless commerce front-end and extending capabilities via new integrations and features.