nopCommerce is a powerful open source .net cart solution that allows users to either use one of their pre-defined templates for their new store or create custom solutions on the framework it provides. Although the Farm to Fork Meals solution was a bit more involved than a normal cart, we knew and were confident we could create custom plugins within the .net and nop framework. This indeed, proved to be the case.

After successfully creating a custom theme for Farm to Fork Meals the next step was to create custom plugins which allowed admin users to set meal plans and schedules and for the normal user to be able to customize their own meal plans. Zulu Shack Creative was able to achieve this with some delicious code in JavaScript, HTML, C#. A fair amount of effort went into building plugins to take care of automating of a lot of the day to day tasks Farm to Fork Meals were doing manually before.

Michael and David, from Farm to Fork Meals, are really awesome fellas by the way, wanted to go live as quickly as possible at the time. We structured the solution in a way where we launched then rolled out improved versions as we went. This is an option for all future clients of ours, sometimes it is good to go live as soon as possible, to start sales and see what your clients are actually after. In this case the product sold it self, the food is delicious and the whole Farm to Fork Meals experience, from ordering, to customer service to the cafe itself, is a great user experience! Should you ever be around the Oakland area you should pop by the cafe for a coffee and some lunch.

Like any good online business you need a good online presence, this involves Social and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Farm to Fork Meals chose to go in house for their SEO, that being said, Zulu Shack Creative has always been on hand with their solution as a whole and has helped from a Social stand point on Facebook, promoting paid and organic marketing efforts.