Stew Leonard’s Taps GrocerKey for Online Catering

Independent grocer Stew Leonard’s has chosen GrocerKey to create a branded e-commerce platform customized to the specific requirements of the retailer’s catering business and customers. GrocerKey lets Stew Leonard’s have full control of the catering process, providing responsive and personalized ordering experiences to better meet customer needs, as well as comprehensive order management and analytics to ensure customer satisfaction and sustainable growth.

As Stew Leonard’s sole e-commerce solution provider, GrocerKey aims to deliver a seamless extension of the grocer’s in-store catering offering, from order placement through checkout and preferred pickup method. To that end, the vendor developed the specialized functionality necessary for catering meal solutions, such as enabling customers to select side dishes, whether they wanted items hot or cold upon pickup, and accommodating off-menu requests.

“Catering is a complex e-commerce offering, especially when delivering hot and cold meal items,” said Jeremy Neren, CEO and co-founder of Madison, Wis.-based white-label e-commerce platform GrocerKey. “With Stew Leonard’s, we collaborated to develop an e-commerce platform that guides customers seamlessly through ordering to pickup and provides an optimal online experience that keeps the retailer top of mind for their catering needs.”

Inspired by Stew Leonard’s exemplary in-store customer service, GrocerKey augmented its order management and fulfillment system with a mobile app to push SMS notifications with order and customer updates for the culinary and catering staff, as well as for store greeters, to personalize each customer’s order pickup experience. 

The resulting new StewLeonardsCatering.com platform offers a more efficient and effective e-commerce experience through the following features:

• A comprehensive order and customer management system with integrated analytics and reporting to track performance against KPIs and optimize operations. These data-driven insights make ongoing optimization of the customer experience possible.
• Digital merchandising of the wide-ranging meal solutions to call out special events and promotions.
• An improved customer experience, including a greater online assortment, responsive menu options, and faster checkout. Additionally, expanded fulfillment windows let customers order up to six months in advance and edit orders up to 24 hours before pickup.

Future plans include offering local delivery for online catering orders and implementing smart kitchen technology for more efficient catering operations. GrocerKey is now working to roll out an online gifting platform for Stew Leonard’s, which will have capabilities similar to those of the catering platform.

“GrocerKey customized our new catering site, from the ground up,” noted Stew Leonard Jr., president and CEO of Norwalk, Conn.-based Stew Leonard’s, which operates seven stores in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. “More importantly, they helped to translate our legendary in-store customer service onto an e-commerce platform.”