Gourmeat Boosts Efficiency and Productivity by 40% on Amazon Lightsail

Gourmeat, a meat boutique founded in Uruguay and with US operations in Miami, Florida, was using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to manage isolated inventories manually, but this time-consuming process was hampering its growth. 

Looking to modernize its data solution, Gourmeat turned to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Select Consulting Partner Nub8. Within weeks, the company had a new inventory management system hosted on Amazon Lightsail, a simple-to-use virtual private server that offers everything needed to build a web application. Gourmeat’s integrated cloud-based inventory application reduces time spent on inventory management, maintains reliable and secure data, and enables key decision makers in the company to have simultaneous data access.

Founded in 2013, Gourmeat sells hormone- and antibiotic-free meat online and in stores in Uruguay and Miami. Before turning to AWS and Nub8, Gourmeat managed inventory through manual reports from its vendors. “The old system used isolated applications, and it didn’t enable simultaneous access for decision makers across the company,” says Lucia Albanell, CEO and cofounder of Gourmeat. “This resulted in inefficiencies and low confidence in data quality.” 

The company took Nub8’s recommendation to modernize its testing and production environments on Amazon Lightsail. Over a 6-week period ending in October 2020, Nub8 built the customized application, consulting with the Gourmeat team weekly. “During 1-week sprints, we could use Amazon Lightsail to test out new features and launch them without affecting the production environment,” says Federico Decia, CEO and cofounder of Nub8. 

For intuitive visualizations of the newly integrated data, Gourmeat uses Amazon QuickSight, a machine learning–powered business intelligence service built for the cloud. “We gain a lot more data visibility from the Amazon QuickSight reporting dashboard,” says Albanell. “Now that we can collect all the information we need in one place in real time, we can make better decisions.”

The inventory management system has yielded a number of benefits for Gourmeat, including increased time optimization for its staff. “Once we started using the solution built on Amazon Lightsail, inventory management and report creation went from approximately 4 hours a week to less than 20 minutes,” says Albanell. Overall, Gourmeat has seen a productivity increase of at least 40 percent. 

With simultaneous access to reliable inventory data that’s updated in real time, Gourmeat’s decision makers can make better decisions more quickly, resulting in better-timed shipments to stores and an increased shelf life for meat products. Gourmeat can also adapt its ecommerce site as needed. “Uploading information, changing products, and performing other backend tasks are much faster on Amazon Lightsail,” says Albanell. Using Amazon Lightsail has also generated predictable month-to-month costs for the company.

Gourmeat’s success shows that even small businesses have plenty to gain from modernization on AWS. Going forward, Gourmeat sees many opportunities to unlock the potential of its newly integrated data, including using intelligence to analyze and predict customer behavior. “Through Nub8 and AWS, we came up with fast solutions to big problems,” says Albanell. “AWS services are designed to be effective, reliable, secure, and cost efficient; my advice for other small businesses is to go for it.”