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Festival Foods Partners with Zipline, Increasing Store Execution to 90% Within Weeks


SAN FRANCISCO – WEBWIRE
  • Previously relying on email for all communications, Festival Foods modernized its operations with Zipline in 40 stores
  • More than 2,000 Festival Foods employees now trust Zipline’s unified platform to track store execution and measure engagement


Zipline, a unified platform for operational excellence, today announced its partnership with Festival Foods, a Wisconsin-based, family- and employee-owned grocer, to boost execution and create a clear line-of-sight among the brand’s 8,000+ employees.

The 77-year-old grocer previously relied solely on email to distribute information to frontline employees. This, paired with its unique communication structure with autonomous departments, created hurdles in delivering time-sensitive tasks and tracking store execution rates.

Festival Foods required a solution that would seamlessly simplify communication, increase employee accountability, and improve store execution. After piloting Zipline in select stores, they realized Zipline checked all of their boxes—immediately delivering on all of these requirements while providing true value to the team. Just six weeks after a full-fleet launch of Zipline, Festival Foods saw 93% readership and 90% execution—more than 3x the industry average execution rate of 29%.

“It’s a rare thing for new software to help a team transition so smoothly. Zipline is the exception,” said Michael Siakpere, Market Store Director at Festival Foods. “We chose Zipline due to its superior functionality, the company’s reputation, and most importantly, the general culture fit with Festival Foods. Through the pilot, tasks, and duties never skipped a beat—because everything was in Zipline. Reliability is priceless, and Zipline gave us newfound confidence.”

Festival Foods wanted to continue to pursue spending quality time with their guests. Zipline gave Festival Foods more time back in the day for more engaged guest interactions. Associates no longer need to step away from guests, run to the back office to check on a deliverable, or finish a task—they can complete it on the floor, right from their smartphones through Zipline.

One of the key reasons for choosing Zipline was to help Festival Foods streamline and simplify communications to help drive execution. Execution is one of the core values of their brand, and their use of Zipline has significantly improved their ability to execute daily, weekly, and monthly tasks.

Prior to Zipline, Festival Foods was coordinating important memos and follow-ups via email across 20+ departments and hundreds of communicators. With so many emails, it was hard to track what had been accomplished. From the beginning of the pilot, through implementation, Zipline has helped the Festival Foods team successfully schedule at least 80% of communications and provide a clear outline of tasks that need to be completed by each department and team. Store teams know that they can check Zipline first thing to get a solid understanding of what is important and what they need to do to keep the day on track.

Through communication and tasking in Zipline, Festival Foods is able to achieve strong compliance on execution to save the organization both time and money, allowing them more time to focus on their guests. Ultimately, Zipline was the optimal solution to help them connect their departments and create a healthier environment for both associates and guests.

Zipline helps Festival Foods to reduce noise, streamline communication, and drive accountability via the platform’s tools, including:

  • Reporting Tool. The brand now has visibility into readership and execution, allowing the grocer to track progress and identify areas for improvement.
  • Surveys. Now, Festival Foods can use surveys to provide stores with the ability to communicate what a well-done task “looks” like, as well as to receive real-time images of stores to visually verify execution in real-time.
  • Groups. With one-to-one or group messaging capabilities, Groups keeps communication within Zipline, reducing the number of emails, texts, and phone calls an associate must wade through in a day. Employees no longer need to spend time searching for a conversation or an email because it is all within Zipline.
  • Store Audit. The ability of Festival Foods associates to complete store audits and assessments on mobile devices has helped improve efficiency—some that used to take 3 hours are now taking only 25 minutes.
  • Resource Library. This knowledge-based product serves as a one-stop shop for all operational documentation and materials, allowing Festival Foods to have things in one place that is easily accessible and searchable.


“No store wants—or has the time—to fly blind in this tough market. It’s vital to set up your employees for success in order to have store success. In this case, Festival Foods was looking for a solution tailored to the needs of their established brand,” said Melissa Wong, Zipline CEO and Co-Founder. “We’re excited for Festival Foods to continue to expand and explore Zipline’s capabilities as a seamless solution for in-store execution, customer satisfaction, and all-around employee happiness.”

To request a demo or to learn more about how Zipline is helping leading brands improve employee engagement, visit getzipline.com.

About Festival Foods
Founded in 1946 as Skogen’s IGA, Festival Foods is a Wisconsin family- and employee-owned grocer that is committed to giving back to the communities it serves and providing guests with exceptional service and value. The company, which began operating as Festival Foods in 1990, today employs more than 8,000 full- and part-time associates and operates 40 full-service supermarkets across the state of Wisconsin.

About Zipline
Zipline is how best-in-class retailers bring brand strategies to life in stores. A unified platform for operational excellence, Zipline brings together frontline communications, task management, learning, resources, insights, and more—so everyone feels connected to the brand and inspired by their work. The company has an NPS of 78 and was named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies. Store teams using Zipline have a 92% average team adoption rate of the software. What’s more, CB Insights ranked Zipline as one of the 100 most promising B2B retail tech companies. Today, nearly 80 brands like Rite Aid and Sephora depend on Zipline to align and empower their store teams worldwide. For further information, please visit: https://getzipline.com.


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 Zipline
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