Description
Consulting, UX / UI, eCommerce Design, WooCommerce Development, Hosting, Support
Time-Span
6 Months
Background
Mama DePandi is Giuliana Rancic's family food brand: gourmet Italian sauces and pastas built on family recipes from Naples, Italy. The products are sold in grocery chains across the country, including Kroger, King Soopers, Ralphs, Fred Meyer and Mariano's, and directly to customers online.
The brand was outgrowing its Shopify store and needed a home that could do two jobs at once: sell sauces, pasta and bundles directly to fans, and send everyone else to the nearest store shelf, all while feeling as warm and personal as Mama's kitchen.
Objectives
Key goals for mamadepandi.com:
- Build a direct-to-consumer store for sauces, pastas, bundles and combo packs
- Help shoppers find Mama DePandi in their local grocery store
- Share Mama's recipes and connect each one to the products it uses
- Send every order to fulfillment automatically
- Grow repeat business with email marketing, reviews, a newsletter offer and an affiliate program
- Capture the brand's personality: Naples, family and food made with love
Challenges
Mama DePandi sells through two very different channels. Online shoppers expect a fast, polished checkout, while most fans will find the products in a grocery aisle. The site had to serve both without either one getting in the other's way.
Behind the scenes, orders had to reach the brand's fulfillment partner without anyone copying them by hand, inventory had to stay in step with the warehouse, and a family brand team, a fulfillment company and our team all had to stay in sync.
Discovery & Planning
We started with the brand: Mama herself, engraved-style illustrations of Naples, and a warm red, cream and olive palette.
From there we mapped the site around what visitors come to do: shop Mama's Pantry, find Mama in stores, cook a recipe, and meet the family behind the food. We planned the launch in two phases: the new brand site first, then the online store once products, inventory and fulfillment were ready.
Design Phase
The homepage opens with Mama's World Famous Sauce over an illustration of Naples, then moves straight into the pantry, the store finder, Mama's story and real customer reviews.
Script headings, bold red sections and photos of Mama keep the whole site feeling like a family kitchen rather than a catalog.
Shopping & Bundles
The WooCommerce store sells single jars, two-packs, combo packs and curated bundles like the Italian Cucina Bundle, with each bundle listing exactly what is inside.
Every order is exported for fulfillment automatically the moment it is placed, and a buy-again page makes reordering a favorite sauce quick.
Store Locator
Most fans buy Mama DePandi at the grocery store, so the store locator matters as much as the shop. Shoppers search by location, radius and store chain and get a map and list of nearby retailers with directions.
New retail partners are added as locations, so the map grows as the brand does.
Recipes
Mama's recipes, like her Bucatini Pomodoro and Creamy Arrabbiata Rigatoni, live in their own section. A custom ingredients feature lists the Mama DePandi products each recipe calls for, so a reader can go from inspiration to checkout in a couple of clicks.
Launch, Marketing & Support
Phase one, the new brand site, launched in June 2025. Phase two followed in August 2025, moving the online store off Shopify and onto WooCommerce, about six months after our first design meeting. The fulfillment team ran its own test orders and signed off before the store was promoted.
The store is connected to Google Shopping, sends automated marketing emails, collects reviews and offers new subscribers a discount on their first order. An affiliate dashboard lets partners track what they refer.
We host the site on our managed servers and handle ongoing support, keeping the store fast, secure and taking orders.
Conclusion
mamadepandi.com brings Mama's kitchen online: a store that sells directly to fans, a locator that sends everyone else to the right grocery aisle, and recipes that tie it all together.
When the store went live, Giuliana wrote back to the whole team: “Woooo hooooo. Thank you team for your hard work on this!!!!! So exciting!”
It shows how we approach eCommerce for food brands: design that carries the brand's personality, and the behind-the-scenes automation that lets a growing company spend its time on the food instead of the website.
