Village Bakery

Bells of Lazonby selected Hydrant from a shortlist of local companies to produce a revised and enhanced e-commerce website for their Village Bakery brand. A pioneering organic bakery brand established nearly 30 years ago, they still maintain a unique reputation for quality and product innovation. Now stocked in most major UK supermarkets as well as many specialist outlets, their attention to brand quality and determination to maintain it's integrity is understandable.

We began by assessing their immediate requirements as well as getting to know their product range and business approach. They had clear aims for the website and accompanying systems. Specific requirements and need for tight integration between on and offline marketing material meant that many simple 'off the shelf' packages were not sufficiently flexible.

Our solution is based around one of the many open source packages that we work with regularly, allowing us to produce custom components that fulfill very specific needs without the high development costs associated with building a system from scratch. As with everything we do, maintaining a look and feel that complements the existing offline identity was always a high priority. Therefore the look and feel of the site has been developed specifically for the Village-Bakery.

The end product makes full use of a content management system to ensure that keeping product data and content up to date is easy and cost effective. The system also provides a highly expandable and robust base for future development. The e-shop is integrated with a secure payment gateway and features CRM facilities along with order processing and statistical reporting tools.

We also provide them with ongoing support, development and online-marketing services to ensure that the site traffic grows and that the site remains current and in keeping with the brand.