Applications
Food & drink
Milk suppliers portal for Barber’s cheesemakers
a somerset based, well-known producer of cheddar and other hard cheeses, founded in 1833.
Barbers are based in Somerset and are a well-known producer of Cheddar and other hard cheeses. Founded in 1833 they are the world’s oldest cheddar cheesemaker and their products can be found in shops and supermarkets throughout the UK and Europe.
As one of the largest producers of cheddar in the UK, they purchase in excess of 200 million litres of milk from 150 individual dairy farms across Somerset and Dorset.
As the major ingredient in their cheesemaking ensuring a fully traceable, regular supply of high-quality milk day in, and day out is critical to their business. In 2017 Barbers commissioned us to create a supplier portal. Read on to find out more.
problem
Barbers wanted to transform the way they communicate with their milk suppliers, to create a trusted system needed to ensure suppliers are kept fully informed on essential information from Barbers, and Barbers needed to be kept up to date with all information relating to contracts, background and traceability. Barbers also needed to increase engagement with suppliers, to enhance the customer/supplier relationship.
Barbers also needed to be able to supply their customers with accurate, up-to-date information regarding their farm suppliers and product for quality assurance and traceability, as without this information their sales processes and customer relationships would be impacted.
solution
We worked with Barbers to create a working brief for the project, identifying the main functional requirements of the system, data fields and other structural and technical considerations. We also created wireframes for the main pages to help with initial visualisation.
On completion of this brief, we started to visualise the portal page in detail. This was a key element in establishing good UX for a broad range of users, from occasional and reluctant web technology users to the very much more tech-savvy farmers. The aim of this stage was to create a clear, simple interface. The final design and functionality were established for 2 types of users; the farm suppliers and Barbers themselves, the administrators.
implementation
We worked with Barbers to migrate all existing supplier information into the portal, supplementing this with forecast information available for manual submissions, plus any other historic information provided manually by the suppliers. Barbers also uploaded historic newsletters, documents and news articles going back over 12 months. Having identified the key team to manage the portal we then went through a period of training and completed final testing and refining before launch.
With all records up-to-date, testing complete and internal team trained and in place, the portal was officially launched in early summer 2018 and immediately post-launch farmers were encouraged to bring their information up to date which included automatic reminders in the Portal.
results
Barbers have now transformed the ways they communicate with their milk suppliers. The portal has been very well received, all suppliers are using the system and keeping their information up to date, submitting forecasts and benefitting from the resources and news.
The Portal is contributing greatly to customer and supplier confidence, assisting in ensuring a more stable and high-quality milk supply and the new supply chain information held in the Portal is enabling Barbers to secure more domestic and international customers.
barber’s employee portal
Following the success of the Supplier Portal, barbers commissioned us to create an HR portal, a complete solution for their HR requirements. This very sophisticated system was launched in 2022.
“The development of the Suppliers Portal has transformed the way we work with our Milk Suppliers. The key to success has been the considered planning and skilful creation of the Portal, making it simple to use, yet complex in functionality.”
