How What Chefs Want Reached New Heights of Excellence with Cut+Dry

Problem

What Chefs Want’s e-commerce system was getting outdated and it was going to be an incredibly difficult task overhauling the business to a new system. But it had to be done because their existing system just did not have the versatility to meet the demands of their growing business and customer base. 

Strategy

To continue to deliver the best solutions to their customers, What Chefs Want had to rehaul their e-commerce platform by offering them a new, state-of-the-art e-commerce experience which was convenient, easy to use and had all the bells and whistles to make ordering simple and stress-free. 

Results

What Chefs Want partnered with Cut+Dry to deliver a best-in-class, modern and versatile e-commerce experience to their customers. More customers have got on board with online ordering and What Chefs Want is seeing an increase in sales and revenue. 

What Chefs Want (WCW) is a wholesale food distributor established in 1997 with headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. WCW delivers quality produce, meats, gourmet food items, paper goods, dairy, and restaurant staple items to over 16,000 restaurants and food service businesses in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Missouri and Colorado.  WCW runs a massive operation; with over 10,000 customers, 10+ distribution centers and 250+ sales reps and over 850,000 square feet.

While WCW has always been committed to providing their customers with e-commerce, their 10-year old e-commerce system was struggling to keep pace with the demands of their growing business and customer base. There was a lot of complexity and nuance and the system was becoming outdated. It was time for a rehaul. 

Cut+Dry makes complicated things easy

WCW was using an e-commerce system that was 10-years old, in tech terms that’s a long time. So replacing that with a new system was bound to be a tough task. The whole system had become incredibly complex and complicated. Unraveling it was going to be challenging. But Cut+Dry’s team of specialists and engineers came prepared for the challenge. Cut+Dry has helped several large distributors with rehauling their e-commerce platform, so there was a lot of expertise and experience that came in to make the process all the more smoother. 

Cut+Dry has been fantastic to partner with. It was incredibly complicated to unravel the web that we had created with our previous platform. But they really rose to the challenge. - Sarah Re, Chief Marketing Officer, What Chefs Want. 

New features to continue making your life easy

At Cut+Dry, our team is unwavering in our commitment to excellence, and this commitment drives us to continuously seek ways to make life easier for distributors, sales reps, and operators. We believe that understanding our customers’ needs is crucial to our success, so we prioritize listening closely to their feedback and insights. We listen to the customers, understand their problems, digest it and find solutions for it. So we are constantly rolling out top-tier features to address all the pain points we come across on a priority basis. 

This customer-centric approach ensures that we are not only responsive but proactive in our efforts to enhance their workflows. As a result of this dedication, we are consistently rolling out top-tier features designed to tackle the issues our customers encounter. 

At Cut+Dry our team is committed to excellence, and that means constantly working to understand what would make the lives of distributors, sales reps and operators easier. 

I am truly impressed with the pace with which they roll out new features. Just when I think, wow, all these features for the product display, product enrichment, catalog enrichment, boost features are incredible and impressive, they come in and say look at these other new features that we are rolling out. - Sarah Re, Chief Marketing Officer, What Chefs Want. 

Cut+Dry has solved so many of our on-the-road pain points like gathering live product availability, customer specific pricing, and overall making it easier for sales reps to keep tabs on customers. - Chanel Smith, Chief Knowledge and Excellence Officer, What Chefs Want.

A true partner to distributor sales reps

The distributor sales reps are among Cut+Dry’s most essential customers, playing a pivotal role in our overall success. We engage with them regularly, understand their unique challenges and the dynamic nature of their work. Our commitment goes beyond merely providing products; we actively seek to empower them by offering tailored solutions and support that enhance their efficiency. By collaborating closely with these sales reps, we aim to streamline their processes and provide the tools they need to excel in their roles. Our goal is to help them do their jobs not just better, but easier, building a partnership based on mutual growth and success. 

Our sales team is thrilled with the platform and they really look forward to any updates we have to share with them. Our CEO is equally pleased, particularly because the online purchases of the customers converted have increased and we love seeing a rise in revenue and sales. That is a big win for all of us. I really cannot express enough gratitude for the dedication and support. - Sarah Re, Chief Marketing Officer, What Chefs Want. 

What we love about Cut+Dry is that they really are our partners. It is not a simple technology agreement to use a piece of software. They are in the trenches with us figuring out how to solve real business problems. We couldn't recommend them enough. - Chanel Smith, Chief Knowledge and Excellence Officer, What Chefs Want.

Key takeaways

• Don’t be afraid to get rid of the old and in with the new - it may be a challenging task, but with the right e-commerce partner, anything is possible. 
• Your e-commerce partner is only as good as how up-to-date they keep you. It can be easy to get bogged down with a clunky system, but the right partner will help you be agile and adaptable.