“Being in the food industry, where the market is highly competitive, it really comes down to the matter of effectively outsourcing our DevOps and operational needs to the Shakudo umbrella as a whole, whether it’s the product itself or the team behind it. Shakudo’s operating system provides integrated data solutions that enable our data scientists to execute tasks without getting blocked by lack of availability of data and ML engineers.”
Jeff Zakrzewski
VP of Engineering @ Ritual
Founded in 2014, Ritual is one of the fastest-growing food ordering services in North America. The company has transformed the way businesses approach food ordering by offering a comprehensive platform that streamlines meal selection, ordering, and delivery. Through its data-driven approach and intuitive interface, Ritual empowers businesses to streamline their meal management while delivering exceptional customer experiences.
The food market is competitive. With numerous players in the space, the margin for error is razor-thin. As such, the Ritual team was looking to leverage data-driven insights and optimize operational workflows to ensure fast, personalized service while maintaining top-tier quality and customer satisfaction.
One of the challenges faced by Ritual, as the digital landscape becomes increasingly competitive, was to choose the most appropriate data tools to help optimize their operations and decision-making processes. With an overwhelming number of tools available in the market, it becomes ever so crucial for the company to find a flexible solution that allows the teams to leverage data quickly and efficiently.
On the other hand, the team at Ritual needed to ensure that data scientists could execute their tasks without delays caused by limited data access or reliance on ML engineers. As data volumes grew alongside the company’s global expansion, Ritual sought a more efficient and effective solution to streamline data management and enhance productivity.
An optimum solution for Ritual consists of three pillars:
Easy Integration to Existing Workflow
Since the company has already made significant investments in building a robust data infrastructure that supports its current operations, the team at Ritual needed to ensure that any new solution wouldn’t disrupt existing workflows or create unnecessary bottlenecks. Therefore, the ideal solution would need to seamlessly integrate with their current systems, enhancing capabilities without causing disruptions to their ongoing operations.
Operational Effectiveness and Flexibility
The new solution had to ensure operational effectiveness by improving overall workflow efficiency. Ritual’s team had already been operating at scale, and as the company expanded, it was vital that the new technology could not only drive measurable improvements in productivity but also adapt to evolving business objectives to accommodate future growth.
“The realities of everything data is that there is massive and rapid change in tool sets, in open source environments, product offerings, and new technologies. So what I'm really looking for is actually flexibility... So having flexibility of choice of what is making up your stack is probably the most important thing to me. And that's really actually what Shakudo is driving for us."
Jeff Zakrzewski
VP of Engineering @ Ritual
Liability and Continuous Support.
With millions of active users on its platform, Ritual needed robust infrastructure to guarantee uninterrupted operations at any scale. The solution needed to be backed by reliable vendor support and clear liability protections in case of emergencies.
Ritual started working on a major project with Shakudo in June 2024, with the goal to streamline its data infrastructure and uplevel its data processing capabilities. For the leadership team, one of the biggest advantages of working with Shakudo is its proactive support throughout the deployment, integration, and scaling process, ensuring seamless performance and continuous optimization as the company grows.
Since day one, Shakudo’s expert engineering team has been working alongside Ritual's data team to create a robust, flexible data infrastructure that scales with the company's growth. The managed infrastructure requires no DevOps effort from the team at Ritual, allowing data scientists to focus on executing high-value tasks.
“I was personally surprised by the level of involvement from the team and the care that went into making sure that the solution worked.”
Jeff Zakrzewski
VP of Engineering @ Ritual
Looking ahead, Ritual recognizes that flexibility is key. As market demands evolve and new product offerings are introduced, the ability to adjust and expand their existing tech stack is crucial to maintaining a competitive edge.
“I’m looking to establish a solution that doesn't need constant revisions—something that can stand the test of time for at least 2 to 3 years in the data world. For me, having the flexibility to choose the components that make up your stack is by far the most important factor.”
Jeff Zakrzewski
VP of Engineering @ Ritual
Adopting a data and AI OS like Shakudo provides the speed and flexibility that Ritual requires to stay competitive and agile. The platform’s flexible architecture enables users to quickly experiment and iterate with different tools and solutions within a secured environment. With Shakudo, teams can rapidly test new tools and scale their tech stacks up or down, all while ensuring the platform remains reliable and agile as demands increase.
Shakudo has transformed Ritual’s data synchronization process. The company was relying on Stitch as the primary tool to synchronize data from its primary operations database to the data warehouse. However, as the data volume grew, the cost rose significantly, and they needed an alternative that could offer greater scalability at a lower cost.
Since deploying Shakudo, Ritual was able to explore a variety of customized solutions other than integration tools such as Stitch and Fivetran that fit their specific needs, streamlined their workflows, and enhanced data flow efficiency. With Shakudo’s help, they were able to adopt a new solution that was significantly more cost-effective.
“With Shakudo’s help, we ended up deploying a solution which was 60-70% cheaper than what Stitch was going to be, and 50-75% cheaper than what Fivetran was offering.”
Jeff Zakrzewski
VP of Engineering @ Ritual
This cost reduction has allowed Ritual to maintain the same operational efficiency with the same operator at a much more efficient cost, providing significant savings without sacrificing performance.
“The Shakudo team's extensive knowledge and experience with various components in the market, coupled with their willingness to take on in-depth investigations, allowed them to identify and implement the most effective solutions. They followed through every step of the way, delivering a comprehensive solution for Ritual that operates at a highly efficient cost.
Jeff Zakrzewski
VP of Engineering @ Ritual
Shakudo’s mission to empower data-driven companies such as Ritual is powered by the variety of advanced data tools available on its platform and a team of experienced AI and data experts. As an operating layer, Shakudo provides organizations with an easy-to-integrate infrastructure that seamlessly bridges the gap between advanced data solutions and custom development.
To learn more about how Shakudo can help advance your business today, click here for a personalized demo.