Renard's Cheese has been crafting award-winning artisan cheese in Door County, Wisconsin since 1961. Located atop the Niagara Escarpment, where limestone-filtered water fosters exceptional milk quality, Renard's has thrived for generations and still remains a family-owned business. Today, Ann and Chris Renard and their children represent the third and fourth generations running the business.
As Renard's evolved from pure manufacturing to include a retail store with a bustling bistro plus ecommerce, operational complexity grew increasingly burdensome. Managing four separate commerce solutions for different sales channels–WooCommerce for online shopping, a separate website for content, a legacy POS for retail, and a food service system for the bistro–meant inventory lived in silos, customer data was fragmented, and the team spent too much time and energy on administrative tasks.
Recognizing the need to simplify, Renard's migrated to Shopify and has since achieved:
- Four systems consolidated into one unified commerce platform
- 25% reduction in retail staff training time
- 7% online sales growth with 30-50% growth projected next quarter
- Automated inventory sync replacing hourly manual uploads and product entry across four systems
- Unified customer profiles with complete account visibility across channels
The Challenge: Unnecessary complexity limits scale
Running retail, online, bistro, and website operations with separate systems created daily headaches for the team. "We were literally managing four separate platforms, which is a lot and really not necessary," says Ann Renard, owner and president of Renard's Cheese.
Custom integrations promised to bridge the gaps, but reliability proved elusive. As Ann explains, "Sometimes integrations would work, sometimes they wouldn't," which didn't instill confidence in the solutions the team relied on to get their work done each day. Inventory required management in multiple places, with hourly uploads and syncs consuming resources. For a team Ann describes as "small but mighty," this fragmentation meant time spent on administrative tasks rather than customer service and business strategy.
The challenges extended beyond internal operations. After rebranding in 2020 and completing a manufacturing expansion, Renard's was positioned to scale their nationwide retail distribution and export business. Their online business needed to grow alongside wholesale operations, but the disconnected systems created barriers. With no fulfillment warehouse—all shipping happens from the retail store location—unified inventory management was essential.
The bistro added another layer of complexity. What began as a simple deli showcasing their cheeses in recipes evolved into a dining destination with indoor/outdoor seating for over 100 people. Managing bistro operations on a separate system made training more difficult.
Technology had become an obstacle rather than an enabler. What the team needed was a unified view across retail, online, and food service. That way, they could stay focused on the handcrafted quality and personalized service the company has always been known for.
The Solution: Shopify and ecosystem partners deliver unified solution
Renard's Cheese needed a simpler way to run their business. After evaluating their options, they implemented Shopify POS to bring their fragmented systems together. "The thing that attracted us to Shopify was having everything all-in-one," says Ann.
POS Cafe, a third-party app designed specifically for food service operations on Shopify POS, proved instrumental for enabling bistro functionality. The app allows restaurants and cafes to handle customizable orders with modifiers like add-ons and special requests, capabilities essential for Renard's bistro menu. The Renard's team worked closely with the developers behind POS Cafe throughout the implementation to ensure the app met their needs. Renard's even served as a pilot site to help refine printer functionality for the app. "They were so excellent to work with," says Ann, highlighting the close-knit partnership that grew between the teams.
Additional partners were also essential: Solo Media Group initiated the implementation, and Doubleberry Interactive did the site development, bringing familiarity with Renard's existing customer experience from their previous WooCommerce site. Other third-party apps proved crucial as well, including ShipLink for streamlined shipping operations, Route for shipping insurance and tracking, and Flare for managing shipping calendars.
Unifying on Shopify simplified inventory management. When the shipping and receiving team adds new products, they now enter them once and can instantly make them available in the right location. "They're putting it in one place and they're able to say, 'I want it online, in the store, or both,'" Ann says. Real-time synchronization replaced hourly uploads, eliminating the manual processes that previously consumed staff time. With all fulfillment happening from the retail store location, this unified inventory view means if an item is sold out in-store, it's immediately unavailable online, keeping stock levels accurate across all channels.
Although introducing any new tool comes with a learning curve, staff adoption was smooth overall. "Shopify is a lot easier to train on," Ann says, noting this is particularly valuable in a hospitality environment with regular staff onboarding. When customers visit the store and want items shipped, associates place the orders for them through the website. "The experience of using the website is so much easier now," she adds. "The customers have a familiar checkout, and they can use their Shop Pay accounts, which many of them like for the convenience."
The Results: Customized and crafted for growth
Since launching on Shopify, Renard's has seen measurable improvements across operations, customer experience, and business growth. Training on one unified platform rather than multiple disconnected systems has reduced the time and effort to get new employees up and running independently. "It's simplified staff training by 25%," Ann says.
The customer experience has also improved through unified account visibility. For the first time, Renard's customers can see both online and in-store purchases in a single account. "It's a better customer experience," says Ann. "Our customers can go in and they can see sales online, but they can see their in-store purchases too. They can actually have an account set up in one area, and that's awesome." For a specialty food business where customers might order cheese for shipping one week and visit the bistro the next, this unified view helps customers track their complete purchase history with Renard's and makes it easier for staff to recognize loyal customers regardless of how they shop.
Operational complexity has been significantly reduced. Previously, balancing reports across multiple systems consumed substantial staff time. While some reporting workflows are still being optimized, the team has successfully consolidated most operations onto a single platform. Partners continue working to address remaining integration opportunities, demonstrating the ongoing evolution of the solution.
When fully activated in 2026, social media integration will provide crucial attribution insights. "When we're spending marketing dollars and pushing our products out there, we'll be able to see what that return on investment is," Ann says. Previously, the team lacked this visibility, making it impossible to know which marketing investments were driving results.
Looking ahead, "our ability to grow and to take care of our customer growth" is what excites Ann most. The team has begun seeing early sales growth despite focusing primarily on operational stabilization during the implementation phase. Online sales have increased approximately 7% since launch, though Ann notes this understates their potential. With an SEO partner engaged and social media integration preparing to launch, Ann expects 30-50% online sales growth next quarter. Plans also include launching Klaviyo-powered customer loyalty programs and expanding to major marketplaces like Walmart and Amazon through marketplace integrations. "We'll be ready to go with it January 1," says Ann. "I have no doubt that it will go extremely well."
After 64 years of cheesemaking excellence, Renard's Cheese is embarking on an exciting new chapter of their growth story with Shopify providing a unified foundation enabling them to bring their artisan products to more customers worldwide.
The ease of marketing our company under one platform that can integrate with numerous channels–that was really the driver that made us want to switch to Shopify.