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Data Insights Give Small Baked Goods Specialist Handle on Market

Finding it difficult to gain visibility into its sales channel without the kinds of resources a larger food maker might have, Katz Gluten Free found answers from the Crisp programmatic commerce platform.

Katz Gluten Free creates allergy-friendly baked goods for all kinds of dietary restrictions.
Katz Gluten Free creates allergy-friendly baked goods for all kinds of dietary restrictions.
Photo courtesy of Katz Gluten Free

Using and leveraging data to get the most out an operation might sound like the domain of Big Manufacturing. But Katz Gluten Free makes a point of being anything but.

Don’t call the Mountainville, N.Y.-based state-of-the-art facility a manufacturing plant, for example; it’s a bakery. The business—first established in Mrs. Katz’s kitchen in 2006 to create treats for her gluten-intolerant children—prides itself on offering better, fewer products with better, fewer ingredients.

“This is very important in gluten-free,” says Roberto Cruz, marketing director for Katz. “It’s one of the reasons why gluten-free has sustained itself and not just been a fad.”

Katz now creates allergy-friendly baked goods for all kinds of dietary restrictions, also staying true to the original recipes by sticking with high-quality ingredients and no artificial preservatives or chemical additives.

The missing data link

One ingredient that Katz has added to the mix, however, is data. It has become vital as the company moves well beyond the two children who were the original consumers of the gluten-free donuts, cookies, cakes, and pies. Katz products are now distributed widely across the natural channel as well as among large retail chains.

“The food industry was dominated by large companies until the natural food phenomenon took over,” Cruz notes. “It tended to be smaller companies to meet what was a smaller demand at the time.”

Katz has seen years of double- and triple-digit growth, however. And as it grew, the bakery had limited visibility into its sales channels. Relying on its sales and customer partners for data about its own business meant that it had little ability to stay ahead of the curve as a partner to retailers and distributors. Realizing the company needed a more robust data solution to help guide future growth, Katz got some help from Crisp.

Crisp offers a programmatic commerce platform for the food and beverage industry. The platform makes it easy for Cruz’s team to access priority metrics such as sales performance by geography, banner, and warehouse. With a live feed of sales data down to the zip code, Cruz can now design geographically targeted campaigns in key markets and share target locations with his media partners.

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Back to Basics: Understanding Conveyors for Food Processing