Home Bistro
Modernizing a gourmet meal-delivery business across brand, technology, and operations.
Home Bistro had been shipping handcrafted, gourmet frozen meals directly to consumers since 1999, one of the few companies in its category without a subscription model. When I joined, it had a loyal customer base, a back office running on an IBM AS400, and a newly launched custom ecommerce platform shared with two sister brands. Reporting to the CEO and investors, I led marketing, ecommerce, and IT, with a mandate to modernize the brand, the technology, and the operations together.
- Role
- Director of Marketing & Ecommerce
- Year
- 2013 to 2018
- Industry
- Direct-to-Consumer Food
Highlights
- 01Conversion rate above 3%
- 02Three brands stabilized, differentiated, and refined
- 03Multi-channel marketing program built on data-driven segmentation
- 04IBM AS400 replaced with NetSuite ERP
- 05Just-in-time fulfillment streamlined with suppliers
- 06Replatform migrations completed ahead of the acquisition
The Challenge
A loyal customer base, constrained by its infrastructure.
Home Bistro's customers had been with the company for years, but its infrastructure had not kept pace. An IBM AS400 ran the back office. The ecommerce platform, a custom build that went live just before I arrived, was not designed for paid acquisition or testing. Supplier relationships were not yet integrated into day-to-day operations.
The same infrastructure supported three brands. Dinewise, the company's original flagship, Home Bistro, and Colorado Prime Steaks shared core systems, so any change for one brand affected the other two. As ownership and leadership changed, the company deprioritized Dinewise and Colorado Prime and made Home Bistro its focus.
Growing beyond the existing customer base required a brand, a website, and an operation that could compete with modern direct-to-consumer companies.
The Approach
One program across brand, marketing, and operations.
I ran the modernization as a single, integrated program. We stabilized the three brands, differentiated them from one another, and refined each identity, including a rebrand that sharpened Home Bistro's positioning and refreshed its visual identity.
We marketed within the constraints of the existing platform and budget, working around limitations such as legacy gift certificates, and introduced analytics that gave the team clear visibility into customer behavior for the first time. That data shaped a multi-channel growth program across search, social, email, and influencer and affiliate partnerships, run on Google Ads, Facebook, and Microsoft Ads.
In parallel, we replaced the AS400 with NetSuite, brought product photography in-house to meet content demand, and worked with food suppliers and 3PL partners to make just-in-time fulfillment a dependable part of operations.
The Replatform
Preparing the business for a new platform.
Moving off the custom platform was a priority throughout my tenure. The company had recently made a significant investment in it, and all three brands depended on its shared architecture. I led the team through the migration to PrestaShop, which required separating the three brands from that shared architecture.
When the owners brought in a major investor who effectively acquired the business, every migration was complete and the new platform was ready to go live. The new ownership completed the launch.
The Outcome
Measurable gains ahead of a successful sale.
Conversion rose above 3%, bounce rate and cart abandonment improved, and engagement increased. Paid acquisition became a dependable growth channel, analytics supported meaningful customer segmentation, and the supply chain was positioned to support growth. That growth contributed to the company's successful sale.
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