Unilever Food Solutions Shopify Plus Migration: A Quantum Leap in B2B Ecommerce
Overview
Unilever Food Solutions (UFS), the B2B division of Unilever behind brands like Knorr and Hellmann’s, serves professional kitchens across the globe.
To support this scale, Especial migrated the UFS B2B store to Shopify Plus, creating a high-performance ecommerce platform with multi-language and multi-region capabilities. The new store transforms complex supplier logistics and localised product data into a simple, intuitive ordering experience - helping busy kitchen professionals get back to doing what they love.
The Strategic Approach:
How we navigated the complexity
of a global enterprise
Consulting & Concept:
The Commerce Pivot
01
Design:
Functional Premium for
the Professional Kitchen
02
Engineering:
Enterprise-Grade Architecture
03
01
Consulting & Concept:
The Commerce Pivot
We acted as the strategic link between Unilever’s global vision and the practical, local needs of the DACH teams.
Through a series of intensive workshops, we facilitated the transition from a content-heavy homepage to a commerce-first layout, successfully pivoting the strategy away from low-engagement recipes toward high-value B2B features like "Quick-Add" and "Repeat Ordering."
Our consulting phase also focused heavily on stakeholder management, navigating a complex international landscape and maintaining project momentum even through leadership changes.
Through thorough content inventory and iterative wireframing, we ensured that the final concept was not just a design upgrade, but a total optimization of the B2B customer journey.
02
Design: Functional Premium for the Professional Kitchen
The design transformation focused on replacing "banner fatigue" with an intuitive, compact information hierarchy. We moved away from the cluttered legacy navigation to a streamlined "Webshop" structure that prioritizes product discovery.
By tailoring the custom Shopify theme to the professional food service sector, we created a visual language that feels premium yet purely functional, using high-contrast elements and clear typography to aid readability in the high-pressure, low-light settings of professional kitchens.
03
Engineering: Enterprise-Grade Architecture
The technical foundation for the project is provided by Shopify’s native B2B features, which are utilised to their full potential through bespoke theme development. Auth0 provides external authentication to ensure controlled access to customer-specific content, prices and features – even beyond the shop itself.
The shop was connected directly to the internal PIM and ERP systems via the GraphQL API. In addition, middleware establishes a connection to external trading partners. This allows their availability information to be incorporated into the purchasing process and shopping baskets to be transferred to connected partner shops.
Furthermore, Shopify Checkout Functions extend the checkout with project-specific logic, whilst custom apps provide features such as wishlists and a B2B loyalty programme.
The result is a scalable B2B commerce solution that brings together existing system landscapes and partner-based fulfilment processes into a user-friendly platform. This enables Unilever to manage digital sales processes more efficiently, roll out new offerings more quickly, and at the same time utilise a flexible technical foundation for future markets, product ranges and business models.
Especial Feature Solutions
The High-Conversion B2B
Product Detail Pages
01
On the Product Detail Pages (PDP), we introduced a Sticky CTA and a persistent mobile footer to ensure that quantity selectors and the "Add to Cart" button remain within thumb-reachat all times.
We also elevated critical B2B data - including allergens, nutritional values, and preparation icons - to primary visual real estate. This ensures that safety-conscious professionals can find the information they need instantly, building trust and reducing the likelihood of order errors during a busy shift.
Beyond B2C: Reimagining Wishlists as Collaborative Procurement Tools
02
We implemented a sophisticated B2B Wishlist app that allows users to create multiple product collections for quicker reordering.
Crucially, these collections can be shared within a company or team, enabling seamless collaboration and ensuring that standardised ingredient lists are accessible to all relevant team members.
Custom Multi-Supplier Marketplace Checkout
03
We engineered a flow that supports multi-supplier orders by automatically calculating and enforcing regional minimum order values and shipping conditions for each partner.
This system ensures a seamless data hand-off to fulfillment partners like Transgourmet, effectively masking the logistical complexity of the marketplace from the end-user for a unified, "one-click" checkout experience.
Integrated Loyalty
& Retention
04
The goal was to move the Loyalty Program from a secondary "perk" to a primary driver of the shopping journey.
By integrating rewards directly into the transactional flow, we aimed to provide a clear incentive for chefs to buy directly through the platform, effectively reducing price comparisons with competitors.
Secure Identity & Performance Optimization
05
The integration of Auth0 provided the secure identity management layer required for a global enterprise.
By balancing these heavy-duty third-party integrations with clean, optimized frontend code, we delivered a platform that is not only robust and secure but significantly faster than its predecessor. The result is a high-performance ecosystem that meets both global security standards and local user expectations for speed.
Real-Time B2B
Logic at Scale
06
Our primary hurdle was the "middleman" logic inherent in the UFS business model. Because prices and availability are dictated by regional trade partners rather than UFS directly, we had to engineer a system that dynamically updates the entire store experience based on a user’s specific location and selected supplier.
Mobile-First for
Professional Kitchens
07
With over 60% of traffic originating from mobile devices, the legacy “Desktop Delay” was a major deterrent for busy chefs. Our goal was to create a grease-finger friendly interface that allows for efficient ingredient lookups and order placements within high-pressure kitchen environments.
Outcome & Outlook
The launch of the new UFS platform transformed a traditional product catalog into a high-performance service ecosystem.
By empowering busy chefs and kitchen professionals with 24/7 self-service and an integrated loyalty experience, the platform provides immediate value to both sales teams and end-users.
This framework now serves as a global benchmark for digital trade, with Phase 2 already in motion - including a rollout across remaining DACH countries and continuous improvements to functionality, performance and usability - we look forward to ensuring UFS remains a leader in the competitive B2B market.
Client Reference
"A real quantum leap! It is easy to use, very fast, looks great, and most importantly – it simply works. I am especially pleased that you involved the local team and truly understood their needs. This shop is now a clear advantage for us and our customers over the competition."
