L’Atelier du Ferment brings kefir back to life… and structures its growth with Bonx
Fast-growing family business, L’Atelier du Ferment needed to structure its production, traceability, and workflows to manage its industrial operations with greater reliability and visibility, while preparing for the next stage of scale.
.png)
2x
100,000+
3x
A family business bringing an ancestral drink back to life
L’Atelier du Ferment was born from the passion of Sylvie and her daughter Marjolaine for fruit kefir, prepared at home for generations using grains, dried fruits, and citrus.
In 2017, during a family gathering, the same discussion resurfaced: there were too few natural and refreshing drinks available on store shelves, beyond sodas and ultra-processed beverages.
This time, they decided to take on the challenge of bringing kefir back into the spotlight—an ancestral drink that combines pleasure and well-being.
The beginnings were artisanal. Then everything accelerated.
A few years later, the challenge was met: hundreds of thousands of bottles sold, four production workshops running at full capacity thanks to a team dedicated to fermentation, quality, and distribution.
Hypergrowth & the tipping point
In the early years, the team absorbed demand through expertise and commitment.
But with volumes doubling every year, limitations quickly appeared:
- Production tracking became increasingly complex,
- Coordination between four workshops was difficult,
- Traceability became heavy to maintain,
- Growing pressure from short shelf lives and cold storage constraints,
- Strong seasonality (a peak with the arrival of warm weather, a second peak at Christmas).
The company gradually implemented tools: Evoliz and later Pennylane for invoicing, Sidely for order capture.
But production remained manual:
- Excel for stock, shelf-life tracking, and requirements,
- Access and paper documents for quality,
- Internal processes loosely formalized.
As customers multiplied and requirements increased, L’Atelier du Ferment shifted from a family-run logic to industrial-scale food production.
“We do everything that’s done well in a large company… but we don’t have the tools to track it quickly and efficiently,” said Xavier.
Structuring: sales, purchasing, production, traceability
The needs became clear:
- structure commercial tracking with Sidely as the single source of truth for orders,
- secure invoicing and automate the flow from order to accounting,
- orchestrate production from first fermentation to cold storage,
- control procurement: forecasting, MRP, requirements calculation, purchasing,
- ensure full traceability: ingredients, components, batches, shelf life,
- manage subcontracted recipes ahead of bringing them back in-house.
Several solutions were reviewed: generalist ERPs, all-in-one ERPs, food-industry solutions, more modern tools.
It was in this context that L’Atelier du Ferment met Bonx.
The decisive factors:
- a production ERP capable of integrating with Sidely and Pennylane,
- an architecture suited to complex industrial processes (fermentation, shelf life, cold chain),
- flexibility allowing processes to evolve without heavy projects,
- a tool able to scale at the same pace as L’Atelier du Ferment and its emerging needs.
A few months later, Bonx was live.
Benefits after deployment: smoother operations for all teams
- 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.
How would L’Atelier du Ferment describe Bonx?
“Bonx allowed me to connect my existing systems while deeply adapting to our complex food production operations.”
L’Atelier du Ferment’s new challenges
- Scaling industrially: Moving to a factory three times larger requires a new organization—redesigned material flows, expanded cold capacity, larger fermentation volumes, gradual ramp-up of teams and equipment. The challenge is no longer just producing, but finely managing industrial performance at scale while maintaining full control over product quality and shelf life.
- Accelerating multi-channel distribution: L’Atelier du Ferment now operates with a growing network of intermediaries, distributors, and professionals (hospitality, resellers, specialized retailers).
This implies:
- more complex order and logistics flow management, larger and more fragmented volumes,
- increased reliability requirements on deadlines, batches, and traceability.
Starting as a family workshop, L’Atelier du Ferment became a fast-growing industrial player. As production, shelf-life management, and traceability grew more complex, the company structured sales, procurement, and manufacturing through Bonx connected to its existing tools.
The result: more reliable operations, better production visibility, and a solid foundation to scale and expand multi-channel distribution.
