Renewed online service rocketed visitor numbers to a huge rise

Atria is a leading food industry company in the Nordic countries, Baltic area and Russia. It has several online services aimed at various target groups, from consumers to investors and meat producers. The revamp of the group’s online services is a sizeable project, and started from the services aimed at consumers. We realised the new Atria.fi consumer service, in which Atria’s product selection and recipes are more readily available, and whose flexible platform lends itself to effortless content production and publication with different terminal devices.

Information and inspiration from Finnish food

The success of this international company is built on three foundations: people, food and traditions. In line with Atria’s brand promise, the new online service aimed to provide consumers with information about the responsibility of food and its Finnish, high-quality origin.

The build-up of content production focused heavily on food recipes and product information. The generous use of images and videos encourage content sharing and commit consumers to the service.

Aiming for easy content production

The previous time during which Atria’s web services underwent a thorough renewal took place a number of years ago. The platform and technology of the services had therefore become obsolete, and the pages were not suitable for mobile use. There were also deficiencies in search engine optimisation and content production on the old platform was challenging.

The new pages had to work in all terminal devices and allow for easy editing. Search engine visibility was also important.

We were convinced that Solita had the best references on Episerver implementations.

Of the various systems available for content management, Episerver was the one selected as the platform for the renewed online services. Its scalability is ideal for the construction of various types of online services and enables effortless content management.

A project completed in record time

For the development of its online services, Atria sought a partner with a strong showing of extensive online service projects and experience in demanding Episerver projects. From numerous potential candidates, Atria selected Solita.

“We were convinced that Solita had the best references on Episerver implementations. What also tipped the scales in favour of Solita was the experience and competence of the proposed project group,” says Atria’s System Manager Arja Yli-Kivistö.

The implementation project of the online service aimed at consumers kicked off with the most challenging part of it – in other words, the configurations and implementations of the product information, recipe and consumer feedback integrations. The project started in June 2015 and the integrations were done by August, after which the project was ready to move on to the page templates for content production. The new web service Atria.fi was ready for publication by 1 October. All in all, the implementation took three months, excluding the summer holiday month, July.

We’re very happy that Solita’s people were up to challenging us at every step, suggesting new perspectives and solutions throughout the project.

“Our cooperation worked according to the agile project delivery model and was open to both directions. The regular weekly meetings focused on what had been accomplished so far and on the preparation of job lists for the following week.  We worked in close cooperation with Solita’s excellent team,” says Arja Yli-Kivistö.

The project’s smooth progress was helped along by the companies’ similar operating models. Rather than focusing on anything unnecessary or extra, the partners chose the method that worked the best, with no compromises on quality.

A well received new service

The services aimed at consumers were combined into a service for home cooks that helps consumers to cook successfully. Food recipes and tips on how to handle meat – presented clearly with the help of videos and series of images – have been given a central role. The products’ origins are also given a great deal of visibility in the form of producer presentations, for instance.

The renewal project concerning Atria’s online services for consumers proceeded according to schedule to the day, and the end result pleases both Atria and the consumers.

The service’s visitor numbers have skyrocketed, and consumers have been giving a great deal of positive feedback on the service’s usability. The new online service also lends itself nicely to marketing needs, such as the execution of various campaigns.

“The end result was equal to what we determined at the start of the project, and our cooperation was smooth. We are now able to focus on continuous content production in an entirely new way,” says Arja Yli-Kivistö.