Country Life Foods is a family-owned company offering high-quality, all-natural, and sustainable food products. With a focus on organic and non-GMO ingredients, they prioritize both health and environmental responsibility in every product.
When a 60-year-old health food company competes in today's digital marketplace, how do they balance their heritage with modern customer expectations?
For Country Life Natural Foods, launching a mobile app wasn't just about adding another sales channel, it was about transforming their loyal customer relationships without creating management headaches for their lean team.
Isaac, Director of Sales and Business Development at Country Life Natural Foods, explains:
"Having an app just helps with social proof and validation. The app makes us look more serious, more real."
Key Takeaways
- Within 2.5 weeks of actively promoting their app, Country Life attracted nearly 1,000 active users
- The team invested less than 10 hours of actual work time to launch their fully-functional mobile app
- The app now contributes an estimated 3-5% of total revenue with minimal ongoing maintenance
- Push notifications provide a zero-cost marketing channel alongside their email and SMS strategies
- The app strengthens customer loyalty by improving the mobile shopping experience
A Legacy Brand Embracing Digital Innovation
Country Life Natural Foods has been selling organic food since 1960, long before it became trendy. As a vertically integrated business that manufactures their products in Michigan, they've built a reputation for quality and authenticity over decades.
Isaac, in his role directing sales and development, focuses on building lasting customer relationships.
Before the app, he had already modernized their approach by introducing a subscription program with perks like fast shipping and exclusive discounts. This subscription model was designed to transform first-time buyers into lifetime customers, part of a broader strategy to maximize customer retention.
Their Challenge: Balancing Growth with Resources
When Isaac joined Country Life, he immediately saw the potential to modernize this 60-year-old organic food business. The company had loyal customers who had been shopping with them for decades, but their digital presence wasn't matching the quality of their products.
His challenge wasn't simply adding a mobile app, it was finding a way to expand Country Life's digital footprint without stretching their resources. Traditional app development presented obstacles: managing a separate codebase would require specialized technical expertise, ongoing maintenance, and consistent updates to stay aligned with their existing systems.
Looking at their customer data, Isaac noticed a clear pattern - shoppers who made three or four purchases became customers for life. He shared:
"Once we get that third, fourth purchase, it's done. They're in for life."
The question became: how could they drive more customers to that loyalty threshold?
Their marketing already included successful email campaigns with impressive open rates and a newer SMS program showing strong results. But something was missing. Isaac kept returning to the idea of push notifications - a direct, cost-effective channel to reach customers instantly. Without an app, this powerful retention tool remained out of reach.
Finding the Right Solution
When Isaac began exploring mobile app options in the Shopify App Store, he quickly realized that standard app builders wouldn't meet Country Life's needs. Most solutions would create separate systems requiring duplicate work and ongoing maintenance, precisely what they wanted to avoid with their lean team.
He was close to shelving the app idea entirely when he discovered MobiLoud's approach, which stood out because it leveraged their existing Shopify store rather than creating a separate system. This meant any improvements to their website would automatically appear in their app without additional effort.
MobiLoud also addressed a significant customer experience problem that had been frustrating Isaac for months. iOS privacy updates had been preventing their Shopify store from recognizing returning mobile customers. Shoppers were being treated like new users on every visit despite logging in, constantly facing the same pop-ups and losing their personalized experience. The MobiLoud app elegantly solved this problem by providing a consistent environment for mobile shoppers.
Beyond solving technical challenges, Isaac valued the collaborative approach.
He describes working with MobiLoud as having an agency dedicated to their mobile app, giving him a team of specialists without needing to build in-house expertise. This partnership model gave him confidence that Country Life could maintain a high-quality mobile presence despite limited technical resources.
Perhaps most compelling was the marketing opportunity. Isaac saw push notifications as a powerful addition to their communication strategy:
"You have to pay per email, have to pay per text, but push is free. So it's like, it's free, let's push, baby."
This zero-cost channel offered direct access to their most valuable audience - app users who represent their most loyal customer segment. Having this direct line to reach customers drives long-term value and encourages repeat purchases.
The solution aligned perfectly with their business model. Isaac envisioned the app as more than a shopping platform:
"We didn't want the app just to be a place where people would be ordering food. We wanted it to be someone's go-to recipe place that brings value."
This approach reinforced Country Life as a trusted resource for healthy living, not just a place to buy products.
Simple Implementation Process
As launch day approached, Isaac braced himself for the technical complexity he assumed would come with getting their app into the App Store. To his surprise, the entire process required less than 10 hours of actual work from their team. MobiLoud provided a clear checklist of requirements and maintained regular communication throughout the project, guiding them step by step.
Isaac recalls:
"The biggest challenge wasn't technical at all, it was just waiting for Apple to approve our developer account."
Most of their time was spent gathering necessary resources and completing administrative steps like becoming registered Apple and Google developers. The actual technical integration happened seamlessly in the background, managed by the MobiLoud team.
What impressed Isaac most was how little ongoing attention the app needed after launch. Since it automatically inherits updates made to their Shopify store, it operates without creating additional work. He notes:
"I don't want a channel that I have to babysit and watch all the time, the only thing I really do is check the analytics data occasionally."
This hands-off approach allows the team to focus on other business priorities while their app continues to grow as a sales and engagement channel.
Results and Impact
Within just 2.5 weeks of actively promoting their app, Country Life attracted nearly 1,000 active users. The app is already contributing an estimated 3-5% of their revenue, with ambitious goals to reach 20% of total sales through this channel.
What makes this growth particularly valuable is that it comes without the ongoing costs associated with other marketing channels. Unlike paid advertising where you're essentially "buying sales," the app creates a direct connection to customers without recurring acquisition costs.
Beyond sales, the app strengthens their brand by offering recipes and health information. This added value makes it more than a transactional platform, it becomes a resource customers return to regularly, increasing engagement and loyalty.
When asked what advice he'd give to other brands considering a mobile app, Isaac is clear:
"Having an app is not going to hurt your business. You're not going to lose money by having another channel where revenue can come to you and where you can market to customers, especially if push is free."
As for his experience working with MobiLoud, he values the ongoing partnership:
"Great software, great people to work with. It actually works. Going with them was like having an agency for the mobile app -I've got teammates, I've got help. The process was easy and there was no pushback."
Curious about launching a mobile app for your brand like Country Life?
Get started with a free preview and see your store transformed into an app with:
- Zero-cost push notification marketing channel
- No ongoing maintenance or technical headaches
- A dedicated team to guide you through the entire process
We can have it ready in as little as 24 hours - no technical work or commitment required.
Country Life Foods is a family-owned company offering high-quality, all-natural, and sustainable food products. With a focus on organic and non-GMO ingredients, they prioritize both health and environmental responsibility in every product.
