MatPrat: Driving the digital evolution of educational food websites

About the project

MatPrat runs three websites that promote Norwegian farmers and their products. A big part of MatPrat’s mission is to help schools educate their pupils about cooking and related topics.

They used to publish a book for teachers to use in their classes, but changed their strategy a few years ago and decided to go completely digital.

The collaboration

NoA Ignite has a long-term collaboration with MatPrat, providing CMS migration services and web development.

In addition to regular maintenance and constant improvements, there are regular campaigns and side projects that require extra resources under shorter periods of time.

Challenge: From CMS migration to digital development

Our first project for MatPrat was to migrate their web content from eZ Publish to Optimizely. This was a huge task that required us to dig deep into the existing code to understand how everything had been set up. Our main priority was to make sure that the service was stable during this time.

Throughout the migration, a bunch of new features were implemented. We carried out major backend and frontend development, added a login section where users can create their own content and integrated a system that hosts our images and videos.

Since the main website was created, we have developed two completely new websites from start to finish: Matopedia, made specifically for teachers, and MatStart, a platform for school kids. These projects included graphic design, UX design, backend and frontend development, and digital advice.

The Matopedia project included implementing a payment system that could deal with two payment methods (EHF invoices and credit cards). Using Svea Checkout API, we set up the system from scratch and had to dive deep into the existing system documentation to investigate possibilities and restrictions. To make sure that Matopedia administrators can monitor their payment status, we set up a dedicated Optimizely plugin.

Technologies

Our approach: Close collaboration in a long-distance relation

As MatPrat’s long-term collaboration partner, we drive the technical evolution of their digital ecosystem. As we are located in different countries, it’s crucial that we keep regular contact through Skype and Slack, and make sure we meet in person whenever we can.

To meet MatPrat’s needs, two developers are assigned full time to the project. An extended team that includes a mix of developers and designers cover any temporary initiatives on request.

During the summer of 2019, NoA Ignite had two internships devoted to MatPrat. They spent their time improving MatPrat’s weekly menu recommendations, looking into SEO, design and structured data techniques.

Result: An all-time high

MatPrat’s decision to go digital and focus on the websites has paid off: Hundreds of Norwegian schools are using MatPrat’s online recipes and step-by-step instructions, and over 400 schools have already bought the Matopedia solution – impressive numbers in a country with a population of only around 5 million people.

SEO-wise, the websites are in a perfectly healthy state with MatPrat reporting “an all-time high on Google”.