Case Study

The Rustic Dish

GFS aligns systems for The Rustic Dish, with smart, efficient and cost-effective despatch software

The Rustic Dish

Food eCommerce

The Rustic Dish is one of the UK’s largest retail and trade suppliers of beautiful rustic cheese, chopping and serving boards that can be engraved and personalised with a variety of designs. Friends and business partners, Lee Matthews and Jeff Booth, cultivated the idea and began to test the waters in 2011, not realising that less than two years later there would be incredible demand for their exceptional products. Adopting the name of Jeff’s food blog for their venture, Lee and Jeff decided to produce Mediterranean-inspired boards to reflect their passion for growing, cooking and eating homemade food.

The Rustic Dish has since expanded their product range to include an array of kitchen accessories and giftware. The company sources artisanal handmade products from North Africa and India, and only purchases olive wood that would otherwise be destined for the bonfire. All designs are created inhouse in the UK.

The Situation

The Rustic Dish sells its unique products through its own website as well as the award-winning creative Channel, Notonthehighstreet.com (NOTHS).

Since becoming a NOTHS partner in 2011, the company has needed a way to improve warehouse efficiency, as demand for their products has substantially increased. In particular, The Rustic Dish wanted a faster way to create carrier labels and reduce manual processes to save time. It was this need that first attracted them to GFS.

The Solution

GFS identified that The Rustic Dish would benefit from the GFS Channel Connector to import order details from NOTHS. Used together with the despatch platform, GFS Selector, this streamlined the process to enable automatic production of carrier labels from information captured within the order.

The GFS solution has eliminated The Rustic Dish’s manual data entry by:

  • Collating order and despatch information from NOTHS via GFS Channel Connector
  • Automatically printing carrier compliant labels with correct address information via GFS Selector for speed and accuracy
  • Managing tracking information that can be directly supplied to the customer through NOTHS
  • Pro-active tracking of shipments by GFS Customer
  • Care to resolve parcel queries and exceptions as quickly as possible
  • Reducing manual errors and freeing up more time to pay special attention to other business areas

The Result

GFS Channel Connector automatically provides address information to GFS Selector from NOTHS, to produce the correct carrier label with a trackable barcode.

The GFS Customer Care team then monitor every individual parcel, detecting queries and exceptions, and resolving them before they become a problem. All that The Rustic Dish needs to do is click, print and send, leaving the rest of the process in the capable hand of GFS. By implementing the GFS solution, The Rustic Dish now has fast and automated label printing together with meticulous parcel management. This
gives them peace of mind that every parcel is carefully looked after at every step of the journey, with assurance that each package arrives securely and without delay.

The Follow Up

GFS continues to support The Rustic Dish with care and dedication, constantly monitoring parcel movements and offering expert advice to ensure the best possible carrier service.

Since implementing the GFS solution, The Rustic Dish has saved, on average, two business days that would otherwise have been dedicated to manual processes and answering customer delivery queries.

The Rustic Dish is now able do more of what they do best; crafting wonderfully unique products and adding to their list of accolades, including The Independent’s “Top 10 Best Personalised Gift” and The Evening Standard’s “Best Wedding Gift Guide”.

About the company

  • The Rustic Dish was created by two friends and food bloggers in 2011
  • The company designs personalised artisan kitchen accessories
  • Sells to customers via their own website and a wildly successful Not on the high street store

The need

  • To despatch parcels faster
  • Improve shipping accuracy
  • Deliver a seamless multi-channel customer experience

The GFS Solution

  • GFS Managed Multi-carrier Services

  • GFS Selector
  • GFS Channel Connector

  • GFS Seeker