Edible Communities
Background
Edible Communities is a unique concept — a licensing organization where each seasonal publication focuses on a specific region’s food scene. This creates a challenge: maintaining a consistent brand experience across various regions and numerous publishers, each with potentially different printing needs and preferences.
Walsworth began a partnership with Edible in 2017 after Sales Representative Gary Ervin made contact with the company and began pursuing their business. Since that initial meeting, Walsworth’s partnership with Edible Communities has blossomed, and we now print over 20 of Edible’s regional publications.
Challenges
In the seven years since our partnership began, several challenges arose that required dedication, resourcefulness and a bit of clever thinking to overcome.
Maintaining Brand Consistency: It is often difficult to create a unified look and feel across various publications, especially when working with 18 different Edible publishers.
Standardization: We needed to implement a system that could accommodate Edible’s supply needs, ensuring each publisher has access to the specific paper needed.
Country-Wide Distribution: It was important to develop a distribution plan that ensured all products reached their destination on time and within budget, regardless of its distance from Fulton.
COVID-Era Paper Supply: During the pandemic, it was often difficult to supply enough paper to accommodate all of our customers’ needs.
Solution
In the spirit of collaboration, Edible Communities and Walsworth worked together to come up with effective solutions to the challenges we faced.
Standardized Specifications: Walsworth implemented Edible’s printing specifications across all magazines, including cover stock, paper and binding methods. This ensured a unified look and feel while maintaining quality.
Single Point of Contact: Gary Ervin is the sole sales representative for all Edible affiliates, and Julie O’Donley is their CSR. This helps prevent any miscommunications or inconsistencies regarding Walsworth’s capabilities, pricing and policies.
Equal Pricing: As a part of Walsworth’s commitment to consistency across the Edible Communities brand, we offer the same price to all Edible publishers, regardless of location or quantity.
Smart Distribution: Walsworth’s mailing experts created a distribution strategy that accounts for varying schedules, quantities and locations across the edible lineup; this strategy ensures ontime delivery with each print.
Results
The partnership between Walsworth and Edible Communities has flourished thanks to the implemented solutions. Walsworth’s practiced and perfected printing methods allowed us to achieve brand consistency across all Edible publications. Gary developed a strong relationship with all of his Edible contacts and even attends their annual conference as a sponsor. Above all, Edible Communities enjoys a smooth and stress-free printing process for each publication, with a final product that exudes quality.
Conclusion
Walsworth’s partnership with Edible Communities demonstrates our capabilities in delivering exceptional service and ensuring brand consistency, even for a complex, geographically dispersed publication. Furthermore, it’s a clear example of our ability to coordinate large-scale projects through rigorous planning and project management while adapting to changing supply chains and customer needs.
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