Snow Fox Group

The Problem

Snowfox Group is a leading international multi-channel Japanese food business. Piloting a new grab-and-go kiosk concept planned to scale at speed, to sell in supermarkets they needed a flexible way to price and label its freshly made products.

Having experimented with pre-printed labels, Snow Fox found that a lot of label waste was created due to regularly changing in-store recipes. With Natasha’s law on the horizon, it was vital that they found a better solution to accurately label products with ingredient and allergen information.

Snow Fox Group

The Solution

Coming to us for support, we worked together with Snow Fox to build a bespoke solution that considered everything from the software needed to the best hardware to support it.

The Project

Software Development

Simplicity of use was the core objective of the software. With a multinational team and a model designed to scale quickly across regions, a highly visual and intuitive app was needed to overcome language barriers and minimise the need for training.

By introducing high-quality product photos as well as displaying clear product information, product selection is made easy and label printing is simple with the option to preview and print in bulk.

For administrators, it was essential that products could be managed centrally, and that ingredients, nutritional information and allergens could all be easily updated to ensure all stores had access to the very latest menu.

With limited visibility due to the lag in sales data sent by the supermarkets, we also built a user-friendly reporting and analytics dashboard to give Snow Fox a high-level snapshot of store performance information with up-to-the-minute print data daily production reporting.

Marka Logo

Hardware Selection

Understanding exactly what Snow Fox needed, we evaluated the market to select the right hardware. Many competitive products were expensive, bulky and featured weighing scales – something that wasn’t required.

With space in-store a premium, we considered an all-in-one printer and tablet solution, but this uncovered another challenge – store connectivity. Without access to a wireless network and facing unreliable 4G signal in stores, the solution needed to work offline and it needed to be mobile.

The solution? We constructed a custom kit that comprised a Brother TD-4 desktop label printer with an attachable tablet mount. Being able to detach a tablet delivered the required mobility, able to quickly take the tablet to where a signal is stronger at the front of the store or outside to update and sync with the central system

Introducing a mounted tablet allows for that same tablet investment to be leveraged to support other applications such as email, taking photos and even stock counts. Snow Fox also has greater flexibility to refresh its tablet estate as needed to benefit from the latest Android technology.

Compliance With Food Labelling Laws

An international business, the solution needs to comply with food labelling laws across the UK, US and Canada. Snow Fox is a highly responsible business that emphasises the importance of food safety, it really wanted to make sure labelling is correct and that people know what goes into each product.

With a flow of new recipes from its talented chefs, they frequently need to change product information. Not only does our solution allow them to centrally makes changes to products and trigger a manual sync to their stores, but we have developed label designs that meet stringent regulations for the regions it sells to.

The Outcome

A genuine one-stop shop, we supply the hardware, software, SIM cards, support and consumables. This approach has allowed Snow Fox to focus on the growth of its business without worrying about the tech.

A great partnership, this was a new market opportunity and we worked closely with the Snow Fox business to help it get to where it needed. In the beginning, what the product needed to be was unknown but together we build a simple yet highly effective solution which is now deployed internationally across 400+ Panku sites, 900 Bento sites and 600 Snow Fox sites.

Sign Up For More

Stay up to date with the latest in retail technology with news and insights sent straight to your inbox.