WICKED KITCHEN SPICES UP GO-TO-MARKETEFFICIENCY WITH CENTRIC PLMTM

PLANT-BASED VEGAN CONVENIENCE FOOD COMPANY WICKED KITCHEN
SELECTS CENTRIC PLM TO DRIVE EFFICIENCYINTO PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT© 2022 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

“Right now we’re managing everything by Teams and throughspreadsheets. From experience, I know that those systems can be
unwieldy once you start just dumping data in.”Registered Dietitian and Director of Quality at Wicked Foods, JessKolko describes the state of product development at the Minneapolis,Minnesota food company. “We’re such a small company personnelwise, but we have over 140 products in the UK. For the moment, wedon’t have all those available in the US, but in order to manage allof that information, we needed a system that we trust to house allthat information.” Today, the different functions have access to theinformation they need, communication is smooth and efficiency isup. How did they improve their workflows?

A WICKED START				

Wicked Kitchen was founded in 2018 by brothers Derek and ChadSarno, executive chefs and brothers with a mission to help people
to eat more plants. This speaks to their philosophy that eating
plants is better for people, better for the planet and all who liveon it. But aside from being healthy, they’ve designed their products
to be bursting with flavor, texture and taste. Fast forward to 2019
where Wicked reached the 10 million-units-sold milestone of plantbased foods within just 16 months of launching their line at Tesco.
This established Tesco as the market leader in plant-based foodproducts. In 2021, Wicked debuted its US business, rolling out
nationally in Sprouts Farmers Market and at Kroger stores plus othersmaller retailers that purchase the products through warehouses.
Says Kolko, “We are forming our own company here in the US andaspire to be the best-known vegan company in the world.”

Product development for the US business is fast, since it isbased on many of the products in the UK. For the initial SKUs,
the formulations, packaging, regulatory, food and beverage label
requirements and certifications need to be adjusted for the US.
Kolko says, “We launched 25 SKUs in just under six months!” The 10
million units of product sold in just 16 months in the UK bodes wellfor the US business; if food and beverage product trends hold true,
US consumers too, will be clamoring for Wicked Kitchen’s delicious,vegan dishes. Wicked has positioned themselves at the forefrontof consumer wants, developing new food products for a changing
marketplace.
In order to keep up the rapid pace, Wicked knew that they needed
excellent data management. “There’s a ton of information that is
managed currently in multiple different places and by various
different people. And sometimes is not updated as quickly as weneed it to be updated, or it’s updated in one place, but not all theother places,” says Kolko. “I really wanted to start us out on theground floor with a good, comprehensive PLM to help us grow asquickly and successfully as we possibly could, making sure that
we have our data in a usable, easy-to-find format that multiple
people can access so I’m not just the single gatekeeper of all of thisinformation. We want people to exchange information with one
source of truth for the whole company.”“CENTRIC PLM IS
THE SYSTEM WHEREWE STORE ALL OURINFORMATION. SPEED TO
MARKET IS KEY FOR US
ESPECIALLY ON THE NEW
PRODUCT INNOVATIONSIDE, BECAUSE WE WANTTO KEEP FRESH WITHOUR RETAILERS.

CHALLENGES+ Fast US launch of a large number ofSKUs+ All data in spreadsheets, pdfs
+ Teams didn’t have a good way toaccess data
+ Exchange of information notefficient via email, files, shared drives+ Hundreds of ingredients +packaging materials© 2022 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

“NOT MISSING A BEAT

THE EVERYTHING SOLUTION		

Centric PLM serves as an ingredient management solution but it
handles so much more than that. “It’s everything from formulation
to ingredients to storage instructions, shipping instructions, whattemperatures product needs to be kept at when shipped, artwork
cutter guides, all the way through to finished packaging, including
all of the back-of-pack and case-pack information, the UPCs, all themaster case UPCs,” Kolko says. “It’s the supplier, where our products
are co-manufactured, their addresses, their production facilities, theircertifications, as well as our product certifications. It really is all thedata about our products.”
Kolko goes more in depth, “We’ve got hundreds of documentsthat were floating around for each of our suppliers. All of our raw
materials and specifications. And those were just dumped in a Teams
folder, unrelated to the product itself. They were just kind of there.
That made me nervous. We had an item data master spreadsheetwith a section of items that had strike-through text, and I didn’t knowwhat it meant. And I wondered why something is in italics? And whyis this one red and this one blue? There was just a mess in a giantspreadsheet.”

RESULTS+ Workflows are more efficient+ Teams have access to allproduct data in central, digitalhub+ Able to track thousands ofsupplier documents+ Manage plants and theircapabilities“With PLM, we can get it all into a system that works and is easy to manage. Now we can actually associate thedata to a specific product and make sure that we have all of our ducks in a row.”

CENTRIC IMPLEMENTATION TEAM TO THE RESCUE				Of the implementation, Kolko says, “I thought implementation went really well. The folks on the configuration team did an awesome
job working with me. At one point, I had a giant lightbulb go off, and I realized I needed a hundred other attribute fields. The Centric
team said, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ And by the next meeting, they were done! It was pretty awesome to be able to work with folks who were so
responsive and willing to listen. I would tell them that ‘I don’t know how to say this in a language that you understand. So I’m just goingto talk and give you a use-case scenario. And then you’re going to help me figure out where this data is going to go in the system.’
They are very, very kind and helpful and were fine with that.”
Kolko gives an update, “I’m almost done with data population. I’m super excited to be getting the products and the data in. Then we’ll
be building out the ingredients and nutrition panels for each of the food items. I’m pretty excited about that too.”

LOOKING FORWARD
Being in launch mode right now, Wicked is trying to import data as quickly as possible. Says Kolko, “I think Centric is going to be a huge
tool in terms of us being able to find resources for ingredient sourcing, and supplier capability sourcing which is really important for
us to understand. And even if we don’t use a specific supplier right now, our VP of operations for North America is going to start goingto different factories and checking out what their capabilities are. We can house all that information in Centric and understand who
we want to use after we look at all those factories’ production lines. I think it’s definitely going be a huge win in terms of understanding
where we’re going to get our margin targets, and how we’re going to do that.”
Of the overall experience thus far, Kolko enthuses, “I’m super happy with what we’ve done and our partnership with Centric. It’s beena really nice experience. Everyone’s been great—I am really pleased with where we are. I definitely don’t feel like I was just dumped
off after implementation and left to fend for myself. The Centric team has been with me all the way.”© 2022 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

ABOUT WICKED KITCHEN (www.wickedkitchen.com/us/)					We’re Derek and Chad Sarno—brothers, plant-based chefs and the creators of Wicked Kitchen. Wicked Kitchen is a mission-led leading plantbased food company that creates restaurant-quality foods emphasizing flavor & texture that make it easy and interesting to adopt more plants
in our diet.
We cut through the bullsh*t of crowded and stale grocery shelves like a hot knife through tofu with one goal: to bring plants mainstream! We’redriven by innovation and high culinary standards, crafting pioneering and ‘first to market’ foods with an emphasis on OMG this is delicious AF.
Whether you’re vegan or not, our exclusive ‘wicked’ food range unleashes the mighty flavour of plants like never before. There is no downside
to eating and cooking more plants! The more you do it the better and easier it gets. It’s always been about working towards doing good andbeing of benefit for the planet, people and animals!
If you would like to know more about Wicked Kitchen or how to go about adopting more plant-based products for your lifestyle, please checkus out at wickedkitchen.com/ or Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.

ABOUT CENTRIC SOFTWARE (www.centricsoftware.com)					From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software® provides a Product Concept to Consumer Digital Transformation Platform forretail, consumer goods, fashion, food and beverage as well as cosmetics and personal care companies. Centric’s flagship Product Lifecycle
Management (PLM) platform, Centric PLM, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, specification and formulation,
package and labeling, sourcing, quality, compliance, traceability and assortment management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer
industries. Centric’s innovations are 100% market-driven with the highest user adoption rate in the industry. Centric pioneered mobility for
product development, introducing the first mobile apps for PLM enabling teams to collaborate on the move. Centric was also first to launchinnovative Adobe® Illustrator Connect and 3D CAD connectors, empowering design and product development teams to work in familiar 2D
and 3D software environments while directly connected to PLM. Centric’s Agile DeploymentSM methodology speeds implementation for theindustry’s fastest time to value. All Centric innovations shorten time to market, boost product innovation and reduce costs.
Centric Software is majority-owned by Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), the world leader in 3D design software, 3D Digital
Mock Up and PLM solutions.
Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, including being named by Red Herring to its Top 100 Global list in
2013, 2015 and 2016. Centric also received various excellence awards from Frost & Sullivan in 2012, 2016, 2018 and 2021.

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