How a Headless Stack Powerfully Scaled a Kitchenware Leader

About Bagaren och Kocken

Bagaren och Kocken is the Nordic region’s leading online specialist in kitchenware. Operating across Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland, the company is part of the Egmont Group—a unique foundation-owned media house that reinvests its profits into supporting children in need. With a focus on high-quality products and expert knowledge, they are currently expanding their footprint across Europe.

The Challenge: Escaping the "Legacy Nightmare"

Two years ago, Bagaren och Kocken faced a critical crossroads. Their technology was an aging, monolithic “black box” built by a consultancy that no longer supported it. The team was paralyzed:

Zero agility: Simple changes, like adding new payment methods, were quoted at costs higher than a total platform rebuild.
High business risk: A lack of internal documentation and developer control meant the site was a “nightmare” to maintain.
Manual overload: Merchandising was rigid. International markets were difficult to manage.

“Our legacy setup had become a business risk. We needed to move quickly toward an architecture that gave us more flexibility, transparency, and the ability to scale faster across markets.” — Andreas Drougge, Group CTO.

The Solution: A Unified "Best-of-Breed" Ecosystem

Faced with the limitations of a monolithic legacy system, Bagaren och Kocken transitioned to a Composable Commerce architecture centered around Brink Commerce and Enad. As part of the migration, the team initially replaced their previous search and recommendation solutions with Google Retail Search. However, the platform quickly proved too expensive and operated as a “black box” with limited control and customization capabilities.

In a second phase, the company introduced Nosto to unify search, merchandising, and product recommendations within a single experience platform, creating stronger synergies between discovery and personalization. Together, the ecosystem now provides a “best-of-breed” stack focused on flexibility, transparency, and speed-to-market.

The Headless Core: Brink Commerce

To gain full ownership of the customer experience, Bagaren och Kocken implemented Brink Commerce as their headless engine.

Total front-end freedom: Unlike traditional platforms, Brink’s API-first approach allowed the team to build and own their unique JavaScript front-end source code. This eliminates recurring storefront license fees and allows for rapid UI/UX testing.
Global scalability: Brink provides the infrastructure to support Bagaren och Kocken’s expansion beyond the Nordics into Europe, handling complex multi-currency and multi-payment requirements (such as local European invoice solutions) with ease

The Data & Integration Hub: Enad

Enad serves as the vital “glue” of the ecosystem, acting as much more than a traditional PIM (Product Information Management) system.

Automated content lifecycle: Using Enad’s AI-driven tooling, the team automated product data structuring and translations. This reduced the manual burden of managing thousands of SKUs across multiple languages.
Seamless interoperability: Enad facilitates the flow of data between the commerce engine (Brink) and the experience layer (Nosto), ensuring that product updates are reflected across the site in near real-time without custom-coded integrations.

The Experience & Discovery Engine: Nosto

To replace the “black box” nature of their previous search provider, Bagaren och Kocken leveraged Nosto to power Search, Category Merchandising, and Product Recommendations.

Transparent search & discovery: Nosto Personalized Search provided the team with clear visibility into ranking logic. Using AI-powered synonyms and natural language processing, they improved product findability without the manual overhead required by their previous solution.
Strategic merchandising: Through Nosto’s Category Merchandising, the team shifted from static lists to dynamic, goal-oriented displays. They can now boost high-margin “own-brand” products, automate the clearance of overstock, or increase AOV by tailoring recommendations in the shopping cart and “add-to-cart” popups.

The global expansion efficiency: One of the most significant wins was Nosto’s ability to copy settings across 15+ different market indexes. This allows the team to maintain a global standard while retaining the flexibility to customize merchandising for high-priority “power markets.”

The Results: From Maintenance to Growth

The migration has transformed Bagaren och Kocken from a company struggling with technical debt into a scalable Nordic powerhouse.

Multi-market efficiency: Using Nosto’s transfer tool, the team can now launch and manage merchandising across 4+ countries in minutes, while still customizing rules for larger markets.
Operational control: The “Black Box” is gone. Merchandisers can now see the immediate effect of boosting products or adding AI-powered synonyms in Nosto Search.
Scalable architecture: The success of the stack is so pronounced that the group is now migrating its sister brand, AndLight, onto the same Brink/Enad/Nosto infrastructure.
International expansion: The new setup has paved the way for expansion into new European territories, with local payment and language integrations now being a matter of configuration rather than development.

Beyond the code, the solution was defined by a shift in vendor relations. By moving away from “faceless” tech giants, Bagaren och Kocken established a partnership ecosystem. The technical team now benefits from weekly standups and direct access to product experts at Brink, Enad, and Nosto, ensuring that the technology evolves alongside their business goals.

Other case studies