Daily Fresh Food operates in the food sector, serving B2B customers in healthcare. The company produces and sells food products, but its data structure goes beyond product information alone.

Products are linked to dishes. Dishes are linked to menus. Customers use those menus as a basis for ordering, while ultimately purchasing the underlying products. On top of that, available assortments differ by customer, which means the same product can appear in multiple assortments.

To manage that structure more effectively, Daily Fresh Food replaced its previous PIM system with Centric PIM, formerly Contentserv. Together with YellowGround, the company set up a new PIM environment with better performance, improved data visibility and stronger control over the relationships between menus, dishes and products.

The Challenge

At Daily Fresh Food, product data is not limited to individual products. The complexity lies mainly in the relationships between products, dishes, menus, assets and assortments.

In the previous PIM system, that complexity increasingly caused issues. The many relationships that had to be managed, such as products linked to dishes and dishes linked to menus, led to performance problems in the PIM interface. As a result, it became harder to work smoothly and to properly monitor data quality.

Daily Fresh Food faced several specific challenges:

• The many relationships between products, dishes and menus caused performance issues in the PIM interface.
• Data quality checks in the PIM UI became more difficult.
• Thumbnails of linked images and documents were no longer displayed in the PIM.
• The Daily Fresh Food admin could not make changes to integrations independently.

The impact was felt in daily operations. Data errors were sometimes only reported by end customers. At the same time, the team had less visibility into the data in the PIM. When configuration changes were needed, Daily Fresh Food also had to wait until its implementation partner had time to respond.

For B2B healthcare customers that rely on menus and dishes to order the right products, accurate and complete data is essential.

Daily Fresh Food therefore needed a PIM solution that could do more than manage products. It had to support the full relationship between products, dishes, menus and assortments in a way that was fast, reliable and easy to control.

Our Approach

Together with YellowGround, Daily Fresh Food chose Centric PIM. The platform was selected for its improved performance, flexible search functionality and the option for a Daily Fresh Food admin to handle basic configurations more easily.

The existing collaboration also played an important role. YellowGround already knew Daily Fresh Food’s challenges well, which made it possible to approach the project in a focused and pragmatic way.

Migration with targeted improvements

The project was largely set up as a like-for-like migration, combined with a number of quick wins. This allowed most of the scope to be delivered within an MVP. The goal was not to rebuild everything from scratch, but to make the existing way of working smoother, clearer and easier to manage.

Centric PIM was integrated with the existing systems. Data flows from the Navision ERP system to Centric PIM through SFTP uploads of XML files. From Centric PIM, product data is exported to the Intershop e-commerce platform, also through SFTP and XML. Assets are exported to a CDN through SFTP.

Better relationships between products, dishes and menus

A key part of the implementation was the way relationships between products, dishes and menus were set up. By structuring those relationships more clearly, Daily Fresh Food can now search across connections that were previously difficult or impossible to search. These insights can also be used in dashboards or data quality overviews.

This is especially important before a new menu cycle is published. Daily Fresh Food can check whether menus, dishes and the underlying products are correctly linked, so customers can order smoothly and with the right information.

More autonomy for Daily Fresh Food

Alongside performance and data quality, autonomy was an important goal. A Daily Fresh Food admin helped configure fields and certain integrations, supported by training from YellowGround. This created a clear division of work between YellowGround as implementation partner and Daily Fresh Food as owner of the configuration in daily use.

Daily Fresh Food can now import new attributes from the ERP, map and enrich them, and export them again where needed. This shortens lead times for new functionality and reduces dependency on external support.

Close collaboration during implementation

The first phase was set up in close collaboration between YellowGround and Daily Fresh Food. One YellowGround functional consultant took on a large part of the analysis and implementation. On the Daily Fresh Food side, a functional admin and a technical admin were involved and also carried out part of the configuration themselves.

During the first phase, the YellowGround consultant worked on site at Daily Fresh Food every week. Because the project scope was limited, alignment took place ad hoc, based on the topics that required attention at the time.

Results & Impact

With Centric PIM, Daily Fresh Food now has a PIM environment with better performance for complex food data.

Better data insight
Data visibility in the PIM has improved. Relationships between products, dishes and menus are easier to manage, and thumbnails of linked images and documents are displayed again. This gives users a clearer view of the data they work with.

Stronger data quality control
Daily Fresh Food can now monitor data quality across the full structure from menus to underlying products. Issues can be identified earlier, before customers encounter them in the ordering portal.

Improved PIM performance
Performance in the PIM interface has improved. Users can work more smoothly with the many relationships between products, dishes, menus and assortments.

Fewer issues in the ordering portal
Thanks to better data quality, there are fewer issues in the ordering portal. Customers can rely on menus and dishes with greater confidence that the underlying product information is correct.

More autonomy for admins
Admin users at Daily Fresh Food can adjust configurations and integrations more easily. This shortens lead times for changes to the data model and makes the organization less dependent on external support.

Ready for further growth

Daily Fresh Food is now focusing first on the rollout of its renewed webshop. This includes a new web classification with improved relationship logic in Centric PIM.

After that, Daily Fresh Food wants to add products from other companies within the group to its assortment. The new PIM environment supports that expansion with better control over relationships, data quality and publication to digital channels.

For Daily Fresh Food, the value of Centric PIM is not only about better performance. The main difference lies in having more control over a complex data model in which products, dishes, menus, assets and assortments are closely connected.

Looking for better control over complex product data and the relationships between products, menus and digital channels? YellowGround helps you make your PIM landscape faster, clearer and easier to manage.