Brakes and KPS - a basket of fruit and veg

KPS help Brakes in their mission to feed the nation

News

How we helped Brakes in their mission to help feed the nation as the Covid pandemic left supermarket shelves empty

London/Munich, August 20, 2020

COVID-19 has meant all sorts of industries have faced huge challenges – but it has also presented opportunities – and our client, Brakes, asked us to help them change their entire business model (in days!) to meet the unprecedented demand for groceries as the pandemic started to hit our shores.

With the sudden closure of pubs and restaurants, Brakes, traditionally the largest food wholesaler in the UK, was able to step in to support the Government in providing food and other essentials to the clinically vulnerable.

Man holding a box of groceries

Pivoting to meet demand

It wasn’t only those being asked to shield who needed help. Shoppers struggled to get hold of basic items such as flour or toilet rolls, and queues in supermarkets were huge – and daunting. Traditional supermarkets were struggling with demand for online orders, with websites crashing, or, in some cases, being taken offline altogether.

Brakes started by supporting the supermarket’s efforts to get food into stores and then had another idea… What if they could launch a B2C site to supply goods to consumers directly?

And that’s where we came in.

We’d been working with Brakes for a few years, launching their B2B site (on the SAP Commerce Cloud platform) earlier this year.

Brakes approached us to see how feasible it would be to launch a B2C site … and how fast we could make it happen. The answer? Within 5 days Brakes could take phone orders for collection, and within 9 days, with the launch of a new consumer e-commerce site, customers could order online for click and collect at local distribution centres.

Pulling out all the stops to deliver

With new registration, location, payments and customer service processes needing designing, testing and implementing at pace, the project to supplement Brakes’ traditional business was challenging. However, the KPS / Brakes teams worked around the clock to plan, create, test and deliver the implementation of Brakes’ D2C channel on the SAP Commerce Cloud platform in just nine days. Something that might normally take a number of months. Not only were the partners working collaboratively to implement the D2C platform, but it was also delivered with no impact on Brakes’ vital food-delivery and supply chain work.

The new consumer site included a postcode check, allowing shoppers to see whether they live within the 35-40 mile radius delivery zone. Brakes could offer delivery to 6.8 million households. Consumers had access to more than 6,000 Brakes products – including fruit and veg, meat and poultry, bread, milk and much more. The new site allowed shoppers to select a delivery day, build their basket, and complete the checkout process – including credit card payment, using a newly integrated payments solution supplied by ITS.

Brakes webshop on a laptop and tablet

KPS was the obvious partner of choice

Brakes had a few options in how to help consumers get groceries, but, as we had a great working relationship, understood their business, and our expertise in launching both B2B and B2C sites, Brakes recognised the value we could add in achieving this transformation in such a limited timeframe.

The support we received from KPS was nothing short of exceptional, with fast turnaround, and best practice at every stage of the implementation.
Alex Protasiuk, Lead Digital Relationship Manager at Brakes

More Insights

You may also be interested in...

Single View of Customer: Digital cloud

Single Customer View

Your whole customer footprint, instantly

A best-in-class customer experience connects every part of the customer journey, allowing them the freedom to choose when and where and how they purchase from you. Find out how we can make every customer interaction seamless.
KPS joins the Mach Alliance

Read more

KPS joins the global MACH Alliance

KPS announced its partnership with the fast-growing MACH Alliance to promote flexible, cloud-based IT architectures. With its membership, KPS is underlining its position as a provider of future-proof platforms for digital customer interaction that enable enterprises to precisely align their business to the customer in the shortest possible time.
Dreams webshop on mobile

Case Study

Dreams: A future proof foundation for growth

Our relationship with Dreams began with the need for an omni-channel solution that would break down the sales-channel silos and give Dreams a unified view of the customer.

Being more than just a simple redesign, our consultants took Dreams through our Digital Acceleration Programme before we could begin advising them on content and functionality that would get them standing out from competitors.

Privacy settings

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential, while others help us to improve this website and your experience. With your consent, we use cookies to analyse the usage of our website.

We also use cookies for marketing to help us measure the success of our marketing efforts. In the settings you will find detailed information about the individual cookies, and you can refuse the use of cookies.

You can change or revoke your selection at any time on any KPS.com page in the footer under Privacy Settings.

Essential Cookies

Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper functioning of the website.

Cookie Banner

  • Cookie Name: kps-privacy-settings
    Value: PrivacyLevel_0#a
    Storage Duration: 4 weeks
    Description: This cookie is required to save cookie settings. It is a purely technical cookie.

HubSpot:

  • Cookie Name: __hs_opt_out
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie is used by the opt-in privacy policy to prompt the visitor to accept cookies again. It is set when you allow visitors to disable cookies. It contains the string "Yes" or "No."

  • Cookie Name: __hs_d_not_tracking
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie can be set to prevent the tracking code from sending information to HubSpot. It contains the string "Yes."

  • Cookie Name: _hs_initial_opt
    Storage Duration: 7 days
    Description: This cookie is used to prevent banners from being displayed every time visitors access your website in strict mode. It contains the string "Yes" or "No."

  • Cookie Name: __hs_cookie_cat_pref
    Storage Duration: 6 months
    Description: This cookie is used to capture the categories a visitor has consented to. It contains data about those categories.

  • Cookie Name: __hs_gpc_banner_dismiss
    Storage Duration: 3 months
    Description: This cookie is used when the Global Privacy Control banner is dismissed.

  • Cookie Name: hs_ab_test
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is used to ensure that visitors see the same version of an A/B test page they were shown previously. It contains the ID of the A/B test page and the ID of the variant selected for the visitor.

  • Cookie Name: __cfruid
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

  • Cookie Name: ___cfuvid
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

  • Cookie Name: ___cf_bm
    Storage Duration: Until the end of the session
    Description: This cookie is set by HubSpot's CDN provider in accordance with its rate-limiting policies.

Functional cookies

Functional cookies are used by third parties or publishers to display personalised advertisements. They do this by tracking visitors across websites.

Google Analytics

Cookie Name: _ga
Storage Duration: 2 years
Description: Used to distinguish between users.

Cookie Name: _gid
Storage Duration: 24 months
Description: Used to distinguish between users.

Cookie Name: _gat
Storage Duration: 1 minute
Description: Used to throttle the request rate. If Google Analytics is provided via Google Tag Manager, this cookie is named dc_gtm<property-ID>.

Cookie Name: hide-cookieinfo
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Cookie set for querying the cookies.

HubSpot

Cookie Name: __hstc
Storage Duration: 6 months
Description: The main cookie for visitor tracking. It contains the domain, the user token (hubspotutk), the first timestamp (of the first visit), the last timestamp (of the last visit), the current timestamp (for this visit), and the session count (increases with each subsequent session).

Cookie Name: hubspotutk
Storage Duration: 6 months
Description: This cookie tracks the identity of a visitor. This cookie is passed to the HubSpot software when submitting a form and is used for deduplicating contacts. It contains an opaque GUID to represent the current visitor.

Cookie Name: __hssc
Storage Duration: 30 minutes
Description: This cookie tracks sessions. It is used to determine whether the HubSpot software needs to increment the session count and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. It contains the domain, the number of page views (viewCount, increases with each page view in a session), and the session start timestamp.

Cookie Name: __hssrc
Storage Duration: End of session
Description: Whenever the HubSpot software changes the session cookie, this cookie is also set. It determines whether the visitor has restarted the browser. If this cookie is not present when HubSpot manages cookies, it is considered a new session. It contains the value "1" if present.

External media

Content from video platforms and social media platforms is blocked by default. If cookies from external media are accepted, access to this content no longer requires manual consent.

LinkedIn Tag

Cookie Name: bcookie
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Browser Identifier cookie to uniquely identify devices accessing LinkedIn to detect abuse on the platform and for diagnostic purposes.

Cookie Name: bscookie
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Used for remembering that a logged-in user is verified by two-factor authentication and has previously logged in.

Cookie Name: JSESSIONID
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Used for Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) protection and URL signature validation.

Cookie Name: lang
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Used to remember a user's language setting to ensure LinkedIn.com displays in the language selected by the user in their settings.

Cookie Name: lidc
Storage Duration: 1 day
Description: To facilitate data center selection.

Cookie Name: sdsc
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Signed data service context cookie used for database routing to ensure consistency across all databases when a change is made. Used to ensure that user-inputted content is immediately available to the submitting user upon submission.

Cookie Name: li_gc
Storage Duration: 180 days
Description: Used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes.

Cookie Name: li_mc
Storage Duration: 180 days
Description: Used as a temporary cache to avoid database lookups for a member's consent for use of non-essential cookies and used for having consent information on the client side to enforce consent on the client side.

Cookie Name: UID
Storage Duration: 720 days
Description: Cookie used for market and user research.

Cookie Name: UserMatchHistory
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: LinkedIn Ads ID syncing.

Cookie Name: AnalyticsSyncHistory
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to store information about the time a sync took place with the lms_analytics cookie.

Cookie Name: lms_ads
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn for advertising.

Cookie Name: lms_analytics
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn for analytics.

Cookie Name: li_fat_id
Storage Duration: 30 days
Description: Member indirect identifier for Members for conversion tracking, retargeting, and analytics.

Cookie Name: li_sugr
Storage Duration: 90 days
Description: Used to make a probabilistic match of a user's identity.

Cookie Name: _guid
Storage Duration: 90 days
Description: Used to identify a LinkedIn Member for advertising through Google Ads.

Cookie Name: BizographicsOptOut
Storage Duration: 10 years
Description: Used to determine opt-out status for non-members.

Cookie Name: li_giant
Storage Duration: 7 days
Description: Indirect identifier for groups of LinkedIn Members used for conversion tracking.

Cookie Name: oribi_cookie_test
Storage Duration: Session
Description: To determine if tracking can be enabled on the current domain.

Cookie Name: oribili_user_guid
Storage Duration: 365 days
Description: Used to count unique visitors to a website.

Cookie Name: ln_or
Storage Duration: 1 day
Description: Used to determine if Oribi analytics can be carried out on a specific domain.

Cookie Name: ar_debug
Storage Duration: Session
Description: Supports Google attribution reporting API integration to mitigate signal loss.

Lead Forensics

Cookie Name: __lfluuid
Storage Duration: 10 years
Description: The _lfuuid cookie allows a website to track visitor behavior on the sites on which the cookie is installed. Tracking is performed anonymously until a user identifies himself by submitting a form.

Changing privacy settings

Imprint

Data protection statement