HelloFresh uses data analysis to optimise fresh meal delivery experience worldwide

Berlin-based international food company, HelloFresh, has implemented a converged data platform for deeper data analysis in a bid to optimise customer experience and business operations worldwide.

HelloFresh operates in Germany, the UK, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, Canada and the USA. It serves over 7.5 million meals per month to more than 800,000 subscribers.

As part of its latest data- and technology-driven approach, the subscription-based meal delivery service said it has chosen MapR Technologies’ Converged Data Platform in order to carry out deeper data analysis with greater scale and flexibility.

HelloFresh chief technology officer, Nuno Simaria, said the company gathers data from a wide range of feedback points and analysis of this was previously done manually – an incredibly cumbersome exercise.

“Now the company has automated the process with the MapR Platform, enabling data analysis across multiple data sources including its corporate database, website, distribution centers, customer care tickets and application usage. Management teams also have the capacity to explore the data themselves in a platform geared towards self-service.”

Simaria said the platform enables HelloFresh to leverage weekly subscriber touch points, consistently manage supply chains and demand, and optimise customer experience as well as business operations.

“Since we first built our home-brewed BI system in 2011, HelloFresh has expanded into seven additional countries on three continents,” Simaria said. “What we had just wasn’t scalable, especially as our needs became more demanding. With the MapR Platform, we can process tens of millions of rows of data in a few minutes. We get results quickly, gain more valuable business insights and can act on them swiftly.”

Simaria said the company selected a data platform based on Hadoop and other big data technologies after realising its “home-brewed” business intelligence solution lacked scalability. He flagged the previous underlying data platform would quickly hit a limit as HelloFresh’s data analysis needs became more demanding.

He said deploying the MapR Platform was a clear choice after recommendations by other companies and based on the strength of the technology. It will transform operations and deliver real business benefits that optimise resources.

Key capabilities of the technology for HelloFresh include MapR NFS, disaster recovery features including Snapshots, and access to the responsive MapR support and professional services teams. Other technologies used in the HelloFresh solution include Tableau, Apache Impala and a number of third-party services hosted on Amazon Web Services.

Faster performance will enable business agility, he said. “Where it used to take nine hours to process two weeks of data, it now takes 20 minutes. This faster performance makes HelloFresh more agile, giving them more rapid access to business insights and the ability to innovate, try new things, and adjust as needed.”

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