Food & Logistics
Business-Aligned Platform Engineering
FoodCloud
FoodCloud’s original platform had helped prove its food-redistribution model, but growth was exposing its limits. Increasing transaction volumes, more complex retailer and charity networks, fragile integrations and growing international requirements were creating operational risk and constraining expansion.
Proof point
Replaced a fragile legacy platform with a scalable, integration-led system capable of processing high-volume donation flows across international retailer and charity networks.
Complexity
High-volume donation windows
Networks within networks
Zero-disruption replacement
Capabilities
Business-Aligned Platform Engineering
Systems Integration & Data Architecture
Delivery Governance & Capability Support
Strategic Technology Leadership
Problems addressed
A legacy platform constrained by performance, reliability, scalability and maintainability issues
Manual intervention and limited routing logic across complex donation and charity networks
Fragile integrations, weak reporting and deployment risk that limited confident international growth
Impact
10,000
Donation messages capable of being processed within a 15-minute retailer window
The situation
FoodCloud’s original platform had helped prove its food-redistribution model, but growth was exposing its limits. Increasing transaction volumes, more complex retailer and charity networks, fragile integrations and growing international requirements were creating operational risk and constraining expansion.
FoodCloud gained a more resilient platform for high-volume donation flows, richer routing logic and a cleaner foundation for international expansion. The replacement reduced reliance on manual workarounds and gave the organisation a more dependable way to evolve its service across different markets.
What made the work complex
01
High-volume donation windows
Retailer integrations can send thousands of donation messages within a short period. The platform must ingest, validate, split and route these reliably before redistribution opportunities are delayed or lost.
02
Networks within networks
FoodCloud supports retailers, national food-bank networks, local food banks and charities, each with different commercial relationships, geographic rules, food-handling capabilities and operating models.
03
Zero-disruption replacement
The legacy platform, data and users had to be migrated to a completely new architecture while food redistribution operations continued across active markets.
Threadable’s role
Platform and data architecture
Threadable designed the replacement core platform, data model, APIs, middleware and integration architecture around the realities of food redistribution across multiple markets.
Engineering and migration
Threadable built the web, mobile, backend and infrastructure components, then migrated users and historical data while maintaining continuity of service.
Retail and charity integration
Threadable created the integration layer that ingests real-time and batch messages from retailers, applies routing and eligibility rules, and distributes opportunities across charity and food-bank networks.
Delivery governance and capability support
Threadable introduced product management, programme management, QA, automated testing, CI/CD, release controls, observability and clear ownership to make delivery more predictable and lower-risk.
How the work came together
Pressure
FoodCloud’s legacy system could not reliably support increasing transaction volumes, complex donation-routing rules, international expansion or the integration demands of major supermarket chains and charity networks.
Threadable role
Threadable led discovery, architecture, engineering, integration, migration and delivery governance, replacing the legacy estate with a complete platform designed around FoodCloud’s operating model.
Resulting capability
FoodCloud gained a scalable, resilient platform capable of processing high-volume donation flows, routing food according to charity eligibility and scheduling rules, and supporting expansion into markets with different operational and regulatory requirements.
Outcomes and impact
FoodCloud gained a more resilient platform for high-volume donation flows, richer routing logic and a cleaner foundation for international expansion. The replacement reduced reliance on manual workarounds and gave the organisation a more dependable way to evolve its service across different markets.
High-volume redistribution made reliable
Dynamic infrastructure and resilient processing allow large retailer message bursts to be handled without the instability, delay and manual recovery associated with the legacy platform.
Donation routing became materially more capable
Donations can be split, prioritised, re-offered and routed according to food type, charity capability, geography, scheduling and network relationships rather than relying on a simple one-donation-to-one-charity model.
International expansion became easier to support
The platform was designed to accommodate multiple markets, languages, retailer integrations, food-bank structures and local operating rules without requiring a new bespoke system for each region.
Scale
10,000
Donation messages capable of being processed within a 15-minute retailer window
Scale
Thousands daily
Donations processed across retailer, food-bank and charity networks
Result
Full replacement
Legacy platform, data, users, applications, integrations and infrastructure migrated without interrupting service
Result
International by design
One platform built to support different markets, languages, food rules and network structures
Market context
Food redistribution platforms must coordinate retailers, charities, food banks, logistics and local operating rules under severe time pressure. Donation opportunities can be lost if data is delayed, routing is inaccurate or infrastructure cannot absorb short, intense peaks in transaction volume.
Client perspective
Threadable were an invaluable part of our team as we accelerated our product development in ways which we could not have achieved on our own. Threadable also provided support across different aspects of the project from product workshops to tech recruitment to system architecture. We will continue to work with Threadable on projects as they have proven their ability to deliver and are a great team to work with.
Iseult Ward
CEO, FoodCloud
What mattered
Why the legacy platform had to be replaced
As retailer volumes increased, the original platform carried too much operational risk. Performance constraints, fragile integrations, limited reporting and difficult release processes made it harder for FoodCloud to expand confidently across different markets and network models.
Designing the replacement around real operations
Threadable designed the new architecture around the actual movement of food, data and decisions. The solution included the core platform, mobile applications, middleware, APIs, data architecture, cloud infrastructure and operational tooling. It supported retailer integrations, national and local food-bank structures, charity eligibility, donation scheduling, food categories, regional rules and different commercial relationships between participants.
From simple offers to intelligent redistribution
The previous model largely treated one donation as one offer to one charity. The replacement platform could split donations, route different components to eligible organisations, issue secondary and tertiary offers when the first recipient declined or did not respond, and prioritise charities according to store, chain, day and agreed scheduling rules. This allowed more of each donation to be matched to organisations capable of receiving it.
Migration without stopping the service
Threadable migrated historical data, users and live operations from the legacy platform to the replacement system while FoodCloud continued to operate. The cutover was supported by testing, controlled environments, release planning, monitoring and operational readiness, reducing the risk of disruption to a mission-critical service.
A governed platform for continued expansion
Alongside the engineering work, Threadable introduced product and programme management, QA gates, automated testing, CI/CD, release management, observability and clearer ownership. FoodCloud gained both a stronger platform and a more dependable way to evolve it as new supermarket groups, charity networks and international markets were added.
Capabilities used
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