Kmetija Mehak
How we helped a Slovenian family farm replace a third-party marketplace with a custom ordering platform built around how farmers actually work.
Ecological Farming & Local Food
Sep 2025 – ongoing
~100 products, custom stock management, delivery slot system, admin redesign
The Challenge
Kmetija Mehak is a family farm in the Dolenjska region of Slovenia, specializing in ecological Krškopolje pork, poultry, veal, and seasonal produce. They've been selling directly to customers for over five years, building a loyal base of regular buyers across multiple Slovenian regions.
Their problem wasn't traffic or marketing. It was infrastructure.
All ordering ran through Mali Plac, a Slovenian marketplace platform that gave them almost no control:
- •No control over product descriptions — EU meat regulations couldn't be met
- •Customer data locked inside the marketplace
- •Platform fees on every transaction
- •Customers confused about delivery dates and pickup locations
- •Manual order communication through messaging apps
- •No centralized customer list
- •Stock management that didn't match how a farm actually works
The farm was growing, but the tools weren't keeping up. Manual communication over messaging apps, no centralized customer list, no way to send reminders before delivery day.
What they needed: their own platform, built around how a small farm actually operates.
What We Set Out to Build
Replace the third-party marketplace completely, eliminating platform fees
Give the farmer full control over products, pricing, and EU compliance
Introduce a delivery slot system so customers always know when and where to pick up
Centralize the customer list for direct communication via email and SMS
Create a clean admin experience a farmer can manage without technical help
Build an architecture that scales toward payments, automated delivery logic, and marketing
Ordering Built Around Delivery, Not Browsing
Farm customers aren't browsing. They're placing a weekly order for a specific pickup location on a specific day.
We designed the entire flow around delivery slots. Customers select a date and location first, then see only what's available for that slot. No more ordering something and not knowing when or where to collect it.
The farm delivers across multiple Slovenian regions on rotating days. The system handles all of it.
Two Stock Systems for Two Realities
Meat butchered on Monday has a completely different lifecycle than a jar of honey.
We built two parallel stock systems controlled by a single flag per product:
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Perishable goods: weekly batches — enter once, covers all delivery slots that week, expires after the last delivery
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Shelf-stable goods: general pool with FIFO consumption and full batch history for traceability
Every product tracks production dates. Meat products carry EU compliance fields: LOT numbers, best-before dates, slaughter dates, storage instructions, and certification labels. The previous marketplace couldn't handle any of this.
An Admin That Works Like a Farmer Thinks
Payload CMS gave us a powerful backend, but its admin is built for developers. The farmer saw website settings, CMS config, and media libraries mixed in with her actual business tools.
We redesigned the admin around her actual workflow:
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A dashboard with upcoming deliveries
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Orders grouped by slot ("Thursday Maribor, 12 orders")
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Stock split into perishable batches and a shelf-stable pool
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A product catalogue she sets up once
Everything else stays accessible but out of the daily view.
Built for Growth
Phase 1 was deliberately focused: replace the marketplace, make ordering clear, give the farmer a manageable backend. No payment integration, no SEO, no marketing automation.
The architecture supports all of it when the time comes:
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Online payments
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SMS reminders
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Automated delivery scheduling
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New customer acquisition
The Result
Before
- —Four to five years on a third-party marketplace with no control
- —Platform fees on every transaction
- —Product descriptions that couldn't meet EU meat regulations
- —Customers confused about delivery dates and pickup locations
- —Manual order communication through messaging apps
- —No centralized customer list
- —Stock management that didn't match how the farm actually works
After
- ✓Own platform with zero platform fees
- ✓Full control over products, pricing, and EU compliance
- ✓Clear delivery slot system that customers understand immediately
- ✓Automated email reminders
- ✓Centralized customer database for direct communication
- ✓Stock model built around how a farm actually operates
- ✓Admin interface designed for a farmer, not a developer
Every order now goes through the farm's own platform. No marketplace cut, no dependency on a third party that could change its terms tomorrow.
Frontend
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Next.js 15 (App Router, Server Components)
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React 19
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Tailwind CSS
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TypeScript
CMS & Backend
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Payload CMS
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RESTful & GraphQL APIs
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Role-based access control
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Custom admin UI for farm workflow
Stock Management
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Dual-track inventory (perishable batches + general pool)
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FIFO consumption for shelf-stable goods
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EU compliance fields (LOT, BBE, slaughter dates)
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Full batch history for traceability
Delivery System
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Slot-based ordering flow
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Multi-region delivery routing across Slovenia
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Automated email reminders 8h before pickup
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Self-hosted