L'Atelier du Ferment eliminated manual shelf-life tracking and scaled production across 4 workshops with Bonx

Fruit kefir is a living product, and since 2017, L'Atelier du Ferment has been making the naturally fermented drink the way Sylvie's family always did: organic, unpasteurized, nothing added. Growing to hundreds of thousands of bottles a year didn't change the recipe, but it changed everything else.

The hypergrowth challenge for L’Atelier du Ferment

In the early years of the business, the team at L’Atelier du Ferment absorbed demand through expertise and commitment. But with volumes doubling every year, limitations quickly appeared.

For example, production tracking became increasingly complex, coordination between four workshops was difficult, traceability became harder and harder to maintain, and there was growing pressure due to short shelf lives and cold storage constraints. In addition, the company dealt with strong seasonality, including a peak with the arrival of warm weather and a second peak at Christmas.

The company gradually implemented tools, including Evoliz and later Pennylane for invoicing plus Sidely for order capture. But production remained manual, with the team relying on paper documents for quality and Excel as the primary tool for shelf-life tracking and requirements.

Internal processes were loosely formalized, but as customers multiplied and requirements increased, L’Atelier du Ferment knew they needed to more seriously shift from a family-run operation to industrial-scale food production.

Why L’Atelier du Ferment chose Bonx

L’Atelier du Ferment started evaluating generalist, all-in-one ERPs as well as ERP solutions created specifically for the food industry with a clear list of requirements.

They knew they needed structured commercial tracking, using Sidely as the source of truth for orders, as well as secure invoicing with an automated flow from order to accounting. In addition to connecting to existing systems, they above all wanted the ability to orchestrate production with an architecture suited to complex industrial processes (fermentation, shelf life, cold chain, etc.) and to ensure full traceability. They were also interested in a tool to help with procurement, including forecasting and material requirements planning (MRP).

When the team discovered Bonx, they knew it was the right fit because it was both robust and flexible, able to scale at the same pace as L’Atelier du Ferment and its needs as a fast-growing business.

“Bonx allowed me to connect my existing systems while deeply adapting to our complex food production operations.”

— Marjolaine Nantillet, founder at L'Atelier du Ferment

Bonx at L’Atelier du Ferment in practice

With Bonx, L’Atelier du Ferment unlocked more reliable operations, better production visibility, and a solid foundation to scale and expand multi-channel distribution.

More specifically, they now have:

• Finished goods and shelf-life management: Each batch is tracked with its expiration date, status, and location. Weekly inventories are simplified and reliable.
• Raw materials, components, and kefir grains tracking: Raw materials, flavorings, packaging items, and fermentation batches are traced from receipt. Kefir grains are managed as an industrial asset: volumes, rotation, resting phases.
• Structured industrial traceability: Each stock movement automatically feeds the batch history. In case of inspection or recall, the full chain can be reconstructed in a few clicks.
• Seamless integration with Sidely and Pennylane: Orders created in Sidely feed into Bonx. Delivery notes generated in Bonx are sent to Pennylane. Less re-entry, fewer errors, stronger consistency between sales, production, and finance.
• Autonomy for L’Atelier du Ferment teams: Thanks to no-code capabilities, Marjolaine, Sylvie, Xavier, and their teams can evolve processes and forms without relying on external providers.
• Progressive production structuring: Bonx helps generate manufacturing orders and procurement suggestions based on sales, shelf life, and cold storage capacity. Production gains clarity and predictability.

“With Bonx, we connected our operations to Pennylane and Sidely while achieving full batch traceability. Everything is aligned from production to finance and sales. It gives us clarity and control as we grow.”

— Marjolaine Nantillet, founder at L'Atelier du Ferment

What’s next for Bonx and L’Atelier du Ferment

L’Atelier du Ferment will soon be moving to a factory three times larger, which of course requires a new operating model, including redesigned material flows, expanded cold capacity, larger fermentation volumes, and gradual ramp-up of teams and equipment. The challenge is no longer just producing, but managing industrial performance at scale while maintaining full control over product quality and shelf life.

The team is also accelerating multi-channel distribution, operating with a growing network of intermediaries, distributors, and professionals (hospitality, resellers, specialized retailers, etc).

Both of these factors together imply more complex order and logistics flow management, larger and more fragmented volumes, increased reliability requirements on deadlines, batches, and traceability, and more.

Bonx is built for exactly this kind of evolution. More facilities, more channels, more moving parts. We're looking forward to growing alongside L'Atelier du Ferment as they scale into this next chapter.