Butcher, Café, Farm Shop, Garden Centre

A Cut Above: Kilnford Modernises Retail Across Shop and Café

Vision & Context

Built on the farm, shaped by quality

Kilnford Farm Shop is a business that has grown by doing things properly.

Set just off the busy A75 in Dumfries and Galloway, Kilnford has built a strong reputation for quality food, trusted produce and a genuine connection to the land it farms. At the centre of that story is its Belted Galloway beef, reared on the family farm and promoted as one of the business’s standout products.

The farm shop offers fresh produce, local food, deli lines and gifts, while the Farmhouse Kitchen Café has become a destination in its own right, serving breakfasts, lunches and homemade baking to both regular customers and passing traffic.

A business that is authentically rooted in farming, but operating with all the speed and complexity of modern retail and hospitality.

Like any growing business, there comes a point when the systems underneath need to keep up with developments and progress in other areas.

Challenges

When the business keeps growing, the system has to grow too

Kilnford’s previous EPOS system had served its purpose, but development had slowed. As the business continued to grow, the owners needed technology to help them move it forward.

In the farm shop, speed and stock accuracy are essential, particularly with fresh products and integrated weighing equipment.

In the café, speed matters even more. With busy hospitality till points, tablet ordering and order tickets printing through to the kitchen, delays at the point of order quickly affect the wider customer experience.

At Kilnford, with customer volumes, the pressure is constant. Sitting on a major route, the business sees a high volume of passing traffic alongside loyal local customers. Whether someone is stopping in for breakfast, picking up fresh meat for dinner, or grabbing something on the move, the expectation is the same: quick service, accurate transactions and a smooth experience.

The business needed a solution that was fast, flexible, and better connected.

What EPOS Cubed Delivered

A modern retail platform, built around how Kilnford actually works

EPOS Cubed replaced Kilnford’s existing on-premise system with Storefront™, delivering a fully cloud-based platform across the farm shop and Farmhouse Kitchen Café.

✅ The installation was completed in a single day while the business was closed, allowing Kilnford to reopen the next morning fully live on the new system.

The wider project included:

Full migration of existing PLUs and product data.
integration with existing Bizerba weighing equipment.
Integration with EIT and Worldpay for payments.
Deployment of five till points and three tablets across the farm shop and hospitality areas.
Kitchen printers for café orders.
Full staff training and go-live support.

The result was a smooth transition from a legacy system to a modern retail platform, without disrupting the day-to-day running of the business.

SPEED

Faster service where it matters most

With three dedicated shop tills and a combination of tills and tablets supporting the Farmhouse Kitchen Café, Storefront™ has helped improve the speed of service across both sides of the business.

In the café, orders flow directly through to the kitchen printer, helping the team manage busy service periods more efficiently.

In the farm shop, integrated scales keep transactions moving quickly and accurately, particularly at the fresh meat counter.

For both regular customers and passing trade on the A75, that speed makes a noticeable difference.

A clearer view of the business day

For the owners and the wider Kilnford team, visibility matters, whether they’re in the building or not. With Storefront’s cloud-based reporting, performance can now be viewed live on mobile and tablet. Sales, performance and operational insight are no longer tied to a back-office machine.

Working with people you know and trust

Working with people they knew and trusted gave the Kilnford team confidence that the transition would be handled properly, from migration through to go-live.

Having direct support from people who understand retail, fresh food and integrated weighing systems gives reassurance that help is there when it’s needed.

"We needed something that could move with the business and give us better visibility across the operation. Moving to Storefront has given us a stronger, more flexible platform, and working with people we knew and trusted made the whole transition much easier."

What Other Retailers Can Learn

Reflections for farm shops and food retailers considering change

Growth exposes system limits: A system that worked five years ago may no longer support where the business is heading.
Speed matters in food retail: When stock and sales are visible across locations, teams can respond faster and avoid unnecessary back-and-forth.
Connected systems reduce friction: Payments, scales and kitchen workflows all work better when properly integrated.
Cloud brings freedom: Better visibility means owners and managers can stay connected to performance, wherever they are.