Leading Provider of Homebound Meal Kits Leverages Low-Code to Solve “Last-mile” Logistics Challenge of Farm to Table Meal Kit Delivery Services
Mendix-built Core System Enables Customer Input, Product Sourcing, and Expedited Fleet Delivery, Achieving Hyper Growth on Brand Promise of Fresh, Fast Food
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BOSTON – March 3, 2020 — Mendix, a Siemens business and the global leader in enterprise low-code, today announced that a leading provider of home-based, “cook-your-own” meal kits is using its consumer-facing platform, built with low-code, to create a streamlined, centralized flow of products originating from a customer’s wish list to the farmhouse, through traffic, and all the way to doorstep delivery. The new, end-to-end platform captures customer preferences and data on the desktop or hand-held devices, and incorporates full visibility into last-mile movements by a connected fleet with track-and-trace notification for timely deliveries.
By using Mendix’s low-code platform, the company reduced data entry tasks by 40 percent. It also enabled the company to develop a mission-critical core system in a fraction of the time allotted for a traditional ERP implementation. Such rapid implementation allowed the company to achieve sustained “hyper” growth, scaling up from a quarter of a million to 1.3 million subscribers without interruption.
Perishable food and supply-chain challenges
The logistics of food delivery are especially challenging for suppliers. Customer loyalty is built on providing customized meal choices and ingredients, followed by the fast flow of fresh products ordered and delivered within a short timeframe. Food waste and spoilage, sometimes caused by traffic or weather conditions, cuts into operating margins. Despite these issues, the market for homebound delivery of meal kits is surging, with startups and grocery chains competing in a market expected to reach $8.94 billion by 2025.
Streamlining internal processes are key to success in this competitive market. By using low-code to build integrated, fit-for-purpose core systems, the company’s platform now manages the end-to-end process of enabling customers to develop recipes, plan menus, and follow through on procuring those ingredients. With a previous system based on emails and Google sheets, the clutter of data became confusing and employee productivity was difficult to track. The new platform provides a clear structure and overview that keeps the large-scale operation running smoothly.
“It has become a common occurrence for us to see a transformation like this across our entire customer base,” said Derek Roos, CEO of Mendix. “Low-code technology has become the cornerstone of innovation because it enables IT professionals to collaborate. Working together, they address the underlying business challenge and find solutions to that apply to staffing and competitive differentiation. A holistic, low-code platform that enables collaboration, development, testing, and deployment quickly reveals how enterprises can drive tangible value from technology.”
For more information about Mendix and to see other innovations that customers are making with Mendix, please visit https://www.mendix.com/customer-stories/.
About Mendix
Mendix, a Siemens business, is the only low-code platform designed to address the full complexity of enterprise software development challenges. Deploying point solutions to departmental problems solves things at a micro level—but if you want to make a significant impact on your business, you need to go bigger and build powerful portfolios that move the needle sustainably and strategically.
With Mendix, enterprises can take on more complex, transformational initiatives by engaging everyone in capturing requirements, forming ideas, and embedding value assessment throughout the lifecycle of the software portfolio.
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