A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

Telerik’s RadControls helps Fit2Page deliver a delicious website redesign

When mixed with honey, ancient yogis across India called it “food of the gods”. Women hoping to capture some of Cleopatra’s regal beauty followed her example by bathing their skin and hair in it. Genghis Khan fed it to his men before battle to bolster their courage and performance. It offers proven benefits such as better digestive health and lowered cholesterol levels. What could this miraculous wonder-food be?

The answer can be found in millions of refrigerators around the world. Named “yoğurt” by eighth-century Turks, this creamy milk product has been a staple of life for more than 5,400 years. The popularity of yogurt continues to soar – driven by health-conscious consumer demand, global sales are expected to surpass $67 billion by 2015. As sales continue to grow, so have the numbers of yogurt products. With hundreds of major and niche manufacturers vying for sales, gaining ground in the crowded consumer and institutional food service market is a difficult proposition.

Yogurt maker De Zuivelhoeve began life as a small farm shop, selling its farmhouse-style yogurt to consumers in its native Holland. Today, it is one of the largest yogurt producers in the Dutch market, selling products in 95 percent of the stores across the country. De Zuivelhoeve’s Twekkelo products are also offered in Germany, Denmark, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. Additionally, the company targets the food service market, selling in bulk to institutions like hospitals, cafeterias, and care homes.

With sales on the rise, De Zuivelhoeve needed to elevate its online presence; the company decided to relaunch an updated version of its website to enhance its brand and visibility. The new site would offer an improved user experience, including support for multiple languages and greater access to product information for institutional users. The rich-content website would also support key company initiatives, such as its recycling, animal welfare, and locally grown programs. To get its new online home off the ground, De Zuivelhoeve turned to veteran web marketing and design firm, Fit2Page.

“De Zuivelhoeve wanted to have a single web engine that could effectively serve different geographic markets, with content localized for each country,” said Fit2Page founder, Marc Waanders. “This meant we would have to design and build a multipurpose web engine with one content management system using different skins and products for each country.”

The Fit2Page team knew the project would test their abilities, however, they were up for the challenge – the company had a hidden advantage: Telerik’s RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX.

Cream of the Crop

The aggressive development cycle combined with rigorous project demands meant Fit2Page needed every resource possible to help the new De Zuivelhoeve website fulfill its mission. Having had great success previously with Telerik’s suite of high-performance AJAX controls and components, the team was confident history would repeat itself.

“We build 30 to 40 large websites yearly and use Telerik’s components for most of the projects we take on,” says Waanders. “So when we start a website, it’s not a question of whether to use Telerik controls; it’s more a question of which ones to use – they’re already integrated as part of our overall workflow. Telerik saves our team both time and money.”

As designed, each country and language needed to be available through an easy-to-use switch. The site also required a grid-based product display for food service customers, and support for User Generated Content (UGC) such as photos. RadControls offered efficient solutions for each aspect of the project and helped the team overcome obstacles, such as how to present options for countries where more than one primary language is spoken.

“We leveraged RadComboBox for the switch by making the country and language combination visual. This was especially a challenge for the Belgian market, as there are two primary languages, French and Dutch, that needed to be offered,” recalls Waanders. “RadComboBox allowed us to give users a graphic presentation for language selection that was easy to understand and eliminates any confusion.”

The team next tackled a new, streamlined product display system for food service clients. RadGrid’s visual out-of-the-box sorting and filtering functionality fit seamlessly with end user needs. Fit2Page used RadGrid to display lists of available products, with filtering options offered at the top of each column. Extended product information is delivered via modal windows controlled by the Telerik RadWindow component.

“Customers can easily make selections for those products they’re interested in,” says Waanders. “We did some minor custom programming to augment RadGrid’s functionality, but for the most part, Telerik’s components don’t need customization.”

One of De Zuivelhoeve’s central requirements was that its new website incorporate UGC functionality in support of its recycling initiative. Using a simple form that Fit2Page created with RadUpload, consumers can submit photos and messages demonstrating how they are recycling the company’s product packaging. The most creative submissions are then displayed with RadRotator for all site visitors to see.

Despite the project’s broad scope and specifications, Waanders’ team was able to swiftly and effortlessly produce an attractive, dynamic, and content-rich site as directed. Although they didn’t avail themselves of Telerik’s world-class support system and lively community forums for this project, the Fit2Page developers were happy to know they were there, if needed.

“We’ve used the Telerik toolbox for two years now and in those two years, we’ve only used the support ticket system twice. Most of our questions are answered very quickly by Telerik itself, however, we’ve found that we can get the answers we need through the forum system, as well,” remarks Waanders.

A Sweet Treat

The redesigned De Zuivelhoeve website was launched in October 2010. Since going live, the sleek, richly designed site has proven to be an important access channel for consumers and food service customers alike. Waanders and the Fit2Page team are happy to report that it has become so successful that De Zuivelhoeve now uses the website as its primary consumer communications channel.

Fit2Page was able to completely redesign and launch the new website with all of the required features and elements in only two months’ time. Telerik’s components integrated easily with the new web engine, and Waanders is pleased that his faith in RadControls was well deserved.

“We’ve gotten enthusiastic reactions from both the De Zuivelhoeve marketing team and end users. Site traffic is ten times higher than it was previously and we’re getting large volumes of new visitors from a variety of different sources. That’s not too bad, I think,” he says proudly.

"With the smaller team assigned to this project, we were faced with the question of whether we could program all of the functionality needed via AJAX. Telerik’s components are very easy to integrate and the toolkit saved us more than a month of development time,” says Waanders. “We’ve found that we no longer need other toolboxes for functionality; we can cover everything we need with Telerik alone.”