Ideal Meat & Special Food Brings Precision and Speed to Protein Ordering with Pepper

Manual Orders and Mounting Complexity

Ideal Meat & Specialty Food, a family-owned regional protein distributor serving chain and independent retailers, butchers, and foodservice customers across the Midwest, knew they needed to invest in digital transformation. Historically relying on a highly manual and error prone ordering process, most orders came through phone calls, emails, or handwritten forms that had to be retyped into the company’s ERP system.

Each order could pass through as many as three people before being finalized, slowing fulfillment, increasing the risk of data entry errors, and diverting valuable sales time away from customer relationships. In the protein business, where a small SKU variation can result in costly mistakes, accuracy is everything.

“We had one, two… up to three people possibly touching an order at a time.” said Jennifer Imes, director of marketing at Ideal Food Group. “We thought, ‘This is insane. Why isn’t the order just going into the system without a human ever touching it?’”

Ideal Meats needed a solution that could:

• Handle catchweight and net weight items with transparent and fluctuating pricing
• Integrate seamlessly with their NECS ERP system
• Empower customers and sales reps to order efficiently and error free
• Function as both a sales enablement and marketing platform

Precision in Every Pound: Catchweight Pricing and Marketing Solutions

Ideal Meat turned to Pepper as their unified platform for ordering, product visibility, and customer engagement.

Pepper’s intuitive interface enabled both customers and sales reps to place orders directly into the system, eliminating the need for manual re entry. What once required multiple touchpoints could now be done seamlessly, whether by a rep in the field or a store manager after hours.

For a meat distributor like Ideal Meats, Pepper’s support for catchweight and net weight items was critical. These make up over 80 percent of the company’s catalog, and accurate pricing is essential. Pepper delivered the precision and transparency that other digital platforms often lacked.

“So many technologies don’t understand how to handle catchweight items - Pepper really understood the protein industry and built out pricing and cataloging that matches how we sell our products” –Jennifer Imes, Ideal Meats

The platform also became a valuable marketing tool. Ideal Meats began using Pepper to showcase promotions, new products, and seasonal collections such as its “Fall Favorites” campaign, directly within the ordering experience. Customers explored more of the catalog, discovering new products and increasing basket size.

“It’s allowed our customers to have more control over what they order and when they order,” said Jennifer. “And it’s given us a new way to showcase products and drive sales.”

Time Saved, Errors Reduced, Digital Growth

Since implementing the Pepper platform, Ideal Meats has transformed both its internal operations and customer engagement. The company reports:

Significant time savings from reduced manual order handling

Before Pepper, each order passed through up to three people before reaching the ERP. With Pepper’s integrated ordering, customers and reps now enter orders directly into the platform. The result is faster turnaround, less clerical work, and more time for sales reps to focus on customer growth rather than data input.

Fewer fulfillment errors thanks to locked order guides and product-level controls

Pepper’s locked order guides and item exclusions ensure customers can only order approved SKUs. For Ideal Meats’ protein-heavy catalog, that control has nearly eliminated costly mix-ups between similar cuts or case configurations, saving both warehouse and accounting teams hours each week.

Increased product discovery among independent retailers and butcher shops

By highlighting new or seasonal products through Pepper’s built-in promotions, Ideal Meats gives smaller retail partners and butcher shops an easy way to explore beyond their usual order guides. Featured items consistently generate new sales, where some customers even buy everything in a featured collection on trust alone.

Automated catalog updates, eliminating the need for duplicative content

With over 4,000 SKUs, maintaining an online catalog was once a constant challenge. Now, Pepper automatically syncs products, updates pricing in real time, and serves as Ideal Meats’ live customer-facing catalog. It also acts as a built-in demand generation tool, capturing new leads directly for the sales team.

Internally, the platform has strengthened collaboration across marketing, sales, and operations. With fewer order errors, Ideal Meats’ team can spend more time on customer relationships and business growth.

“We’ve been able to use Pepper across so many parts of the business, from field reps to store managers to marketing. It’s versatile, efficient, and reliable.” — Jennifer Imes, Ideal Meats

Looking Ahead

As Ideal Meats grows, its focus remains on agility and customer experience, both of which Pepper continues to enhance.

“Pepper listens to its customers. It’s never a no, it’s, ‘Let’s see if we can make that happen.’ That flexibility has kept us with Pepper as a long term partner.” — Jennifer Imes, Ideal Meats

From starting as an eCommerce and ordering tool, Pepper has evolved into a strategic platform that supports sales, marketing, and long term business growth.

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