Founded in the Netherlands by 32 potato growers in 1962, today Aviko is a global player today. With a portfolio of more than 100 distinctive potato products, Aviko is active in more than 110 countries.
Communication tailored to the chef
Aviko had been working shifting in their market approach for some time. As part of the digital transformation programme, they decided to work on building relationships with end users in addition to supplying wholesalers. For example, Aviko wanted to provide culinary professionals (chefs) information about their impressive product range. This is in addition to nurturing existing relationships with wholesalers, who play the essential role of intermediary.
Aviko wrote a clear pitch: the development of a global B2B platform to bring Aviko’s solutions to the end user, using robust, future-proof technology. iO won the pitch and from the beginning had the collective knowledge spread across the campuses both at home and abroad. This project was a true cross-campus collaboration from the start.
Phased product development, from pitch to presentation
It had been clear to Aviko for some time that they needed a whole new platform in order to reach the end user. That immediately justified a phased approach. As part of the discovery phase, our experts delved into the Aviko data, so that they could get the complete picture of the extent of the project goals, KPIs and a thorough target group survey. There was also a lot of Aviko documentation available, which our strategists gratefully got to work with.
Phase by phase – from project planning, defining, and testing to describing the technical landscape and the final integration – the design of the platform was tackled in short, agile sprints. We called on expertise from our other campuses to provide the right answers to Aviko’s questions. The scale of the project was a recurring challenge. Rolling out a platform across multiple countries, perfectly localised and translated, took a lot of work. One platform, one CMS, but with unlimited possibilities for expansion.
Our digital experts also provided a brand experience makeover, in the form of a new digital branding and corporate identity for Aviko.
A fresh, digital face for a new target group
With a brand new B2B platform, Aviko encourages chefs to get the best out of their products. Our answer to meeting the needs of this new target group: headless. With a headless CMS, you decide how you design your frontend, because the content from the API does not determine the layout. This gives designers and UX-ers more creative freedom to design the frontend. A fine UX and on-brand design are decisive factors for the digital end user. Just like an equally flawless experience on mobile devices – which immediately explains our mobile-first approach.
At Aviko’s request, we worked with Drupal with GraphQL as headless CMS and Next.js with TypeScript as headless front-end. Also included: integration for marketing automation with Salesforce Pardot; including design system, based on Storybook. We designed individual components from scratch so that we could focus on providing the right, digital experience.
Ready, set, go – time for a global platform go-live
Right now, Aviko’s new B2B platform is live in several countries. To be precise, 10+ geographical locations, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands. The .com extension is also active for several countries and is now accompanied by the South American language variant, ready to introduce food professionals around the world to Aviko.
Every local version may have the MVP label, but our experts provide an almost complete product. Fully-fledged platforms ready to serve the end user. Today it’s Aviko’s turn. They continuously complement the different types of content while the iO team adds new questions, features, and possibilities to the core product with further development sprints. In the meantime, they assist Aviko with know-how and experience in content and localisation.
An award-winning project
In 2023, this project won a Splash Award – Winner in category Design & UX.