Umbria Green Heart — Import Logistics & E-commerce
Building the UK operation for an Italian fine food and wine importer — including custom software for import logistics, stock management, cost optimisation, and a WooCommerce shop integrated with a custom inventory system.
The Challenge
Umbria Green Heart imports fine food and wine from Umbria, Italy into the UK — a business that sits at the intersection of supply chain complexity, cross-border trade, and consumer e-commerce. Getting product from Italian producers to UK customers involves import logistics, stock management, pricing optimisation across fluctuating exchange rates and duty costs, and a retail-quality online presence.
Generic e-commerce and stock management tools weren’t sufficient: the specific constraints of cross-border food and wine import — labelling requirements, duty calculations, supplier lead times, minimum order quantities — needed custom software.
The Approach
We built the technical infrastructure for the UK operation from the ground up, combining e-commerce, inventory, and logistics tooling. Key work included:
- Building the custom inventory management system to track stock from Italian supplier through to UK warehouse and customer delivery
- Import logistics tracking: purchase orders, shipping documentation, customs clearance status, landed cost calculation
- Cost optimisation logic across shipping tiers, duty rates, and supplier pricing to surface the most economical procurement decisions
- WooCommerce online shop development with custom integration to the inventory system — so stock levels and product availability are always accurate
- Supplier management workflows for coordinating with Italian producers
- Deployed on Google Cloud Platform with appropriate data backup and uptime for a commercial operation
The integration between WooCommerce and the custom inventory system was the most technically demanding element — ensuring that online orders, stock levels, and procurement workflows stayed synchronised without manual intervention.
The Outcome
- Custom inventory and logistics system operational for UK import business
- WooCommerce shop live and integrated with real-time inventory
- Import cost optimisation logic reducing procurement overhead
- Supplier coordination workflows reducing manual communication
- UK operation up and running at umbriagreenheart.co.uk
Technologies & Methods
Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, WordPress (WooCommerce), custom inventory management, import logistics tracking, Google Cloud Platform, landed cost calculations, supplier API integrations.
About this engagement
This was a Transform engagement: building the operational and digital infrastructure to launch a cross-border import business in a new market. The combination of supply chain complexity and e-commerce created a technical challenge that generic tools couldn’t solve.