End consumers and farmers alike are fond of the Käserebellen from Steingaden: Sales have increased eightfold to €40 million over the last ten years, and the number of “hay milk farmers” also doubled during this time. Also for over ten years, all important processes in the fast-growing company have been managed using the winweb-food enterprise software. How do the Käserebellen work internally? During a company tour, Marketing Manager Matthias Köpf and IT Manager Tino Winterhalter explain this. In Goods receipt 28 million kg of hay milk from a total of 290 farmers are recorded annually. Over the course of a year, 2,800 t of hay milk cheese are then produced from this in a wide product range from “Organic Mountain Climber Cheese” to “Organic Meadow Cheese”, “Organic Barn Cheese” and even innovations such as “Organic Carrot Cheese”. Distribution goes directly to 25 stores that operate in the franchise system as well as as own stores managed. Other sales channels are the traditional wholesale route to supermarkets, butcher shops and delicatessen stores. The address file also still contains 15,000 end consumers who order via the online shop and are supplied directly. The software that controls all of this is called winweb-food. Since 2002, the company has grown by around eight times and has also become much more complex in its structure. And this is exactly where Winterhalter pays tribute to the software partner: “Our system was already geared to this growth. Normally, a company that has become much larger would also need a completely different software solution.”
Software focus on food
The provider Winweb from Aldenhoven focuses on meat processing. Isn't cheese a completely different business? Network administrator Tino Winterhalter, himself a trained butcher and "Business Economist specializing in Meat", has to smile: "The animal-based foods meat and cheese have many parallels, both technologically and also with regard to distribution through retail and especially the service counter". Above all, however, the software of a specialist provider from the food sector is already designed to comply with important legal regulations. Winterhalter mentions food hygiene regulations and consumer protection as keywords. Batch traceability is therefore a requirement that legislators, retailers and consumers place equally on dairy and meat products.
When asked what was decisive for the investment, one comes across the combination "Cheese and meat". Tino Winterhalter explains: "The former managing director of the company Schwarzwaldfleisch and the owner of Käserebellen, Sepp Krönauer, have known each other personally for many years. Thus, at the beginning there was the experience of a satisfied user of winweb-food from the meat sector."
The hay milk cheese from the Käserebellen is a fast-growing success product that ensures delicate highlights and a good environmental and nutritional conscience.
Price-performance
Despite the influence of further positive user experiences, Krönauer arranged a careful price-performance comparison of various providers. And when it became clear that Winweb also offers a good ratio of purchase and maintenance price to the performance provided, Winweb had won this competition.
Today, much of what the integrated enterprise software accomplishes has become an everyday matter of course. “When the system was implemented here in 2002, the smooth Connection of the labeling directly from the merchandise management system itself was already a revolution," recalls Winterhalter, who was working at the company as an external consultant at the time. Matthias Köpf, today's marketing manager, also still remembers well how he was introduced to using the system: "I was simply seated next to it. Then a colleague explained to me what the purchasing and sales screen looked like. About five minutes later, I entered data myself. The system is really structured in such a way that the new employee can find their way around easily and intuitively."
Winterhalter agrees with him and also draws on his experiences from CeBit 2014 in Hanover: “At the trade fair, I took a close look at what is available and what the different systems can do. When I got home again, I was absolutely certain: I had never seen the core areas of purchasing and sales better than at Winweb.”
The IT manager of Käserebellen, Tino Winterhalter, knows various software providers and gives a clear conclusion about winweb-food: The system works absolutely reliably
Special requests
Today, employees work with winweb-food at over 40 workstations in all company areas, the “leading system in our company”, as Tino Winterhalter assesses.
The implementation of enterprise software always includes carrying out special requests. Winterhalter: “For example in the areas Storage accounting and Batch traceabilityWe had special requirements. Winweb implemented them well. And if something was unclear to us, there was always a quick and competent answer.“
Finally, the two cheese rebels Winterhalter and Köpf also give their enterprise software top marks in the areas in which an industry study had already awarded Winweb a distinction: It concerns the area of training for the system. For this purpose, Trovarit AG from Aachen recently evaluated 48 software providers with the support of RWTH Aachen University. Winweb achieved the highest satisfaction in the area of industry software. Outstanding individual scores relate to “industry expertise” and “commitment” (each with a score of 4.77 out of a maximum of 5.00) and “employee training” (score 4.69).
Images: Sergey_Bogomyako / shutterstock.com, Winweb
Published in moproweb.de
Winweb Content Team
More articles on this topic
