A global brand experience across 11 locales

Ricola is one of the world’s most iconic brands for herbal candies. With its roots firmly in Swiss tradition and a product built around Alpine herbs, the company has a long history of connecting with audiences across generations and markets. But as Ricola’s business and ambitions grew, its digital setup needed to keep pace.

The previous website had supported the brand well for many years. Over time though, managing content across multiple markets became increasingly complex. Local teams often worked in silos, making it harder to keep the global brand identity consistent. There was no central system for structuring content, no flexible way to localize campaigns, and limited options for coordinating product launches across regions.

At the same time, the business was preparing to expand its direct-to-consumer and e-commerce strategies.

Ricola needed a platform that could simplify content operations across all of its markets while giving the brand the space to tell its story. The team wanted to move away from rigid templates and manual processes toward a flexible setup that could support global storytelling, local customization, and fast iterations.

So they worked with DEPT to build just that.

Content Structure Designed for Scale

Together with our friends at DEPT, Ricola rebuilt its digital platform from the ground up. At the core of the new setup is DatoCMS, providing the flexibility and structure needed to manage content across regions, languages, and product lines.

DatoCMS serves as the single source of truth for all global and local content. The schema is designed to support a clear separation between shared content, like global product information, and market-specific fields for localization. Markets can easily tailor product descriptions, prices, and featured campaigns without duplicating content or creating unnecessary overheads.

The modular content field in DatoCMS makes this possible. Instead of locking content teams into rigid page templates, the system is built around structured components. Editors can assemble pages using flexible content blocks and easily reuse assets like product teasers, video embeds, and storytelling sections across different parts of the site.

For Ricola, this means faster content creation and fewer bottlenecks between global and local teams. It also means that design consistency is built into the system itself, not manually enforced. Thanks to DatoCMS’s granular permissions, local markets have control where they need it, while global content stays protected and aligned.

Fast, Reliable, and Flexible Frontend

The frontend of the new Ricola platform is built with Astro, chosen for its focus on performance and flexibility. All pages are statically generated and delivered via a global CDN, which ensures fast load times and strong reliability across regions and devices.

DatoCMS powers this setup through its GraphQL Content Delivery API, allowing the frontend to fetch exactly the data it needs for each page. Dynamic elements like product prices and availability are rendered client-side using Astro’s Component Islands approach. This allows Ricola to keep dynamic content fresh without losing the performance benefits of static generation.

The result is a site that performs well under real-world conditions, even with multiple language versions and regional variations. Customers get a fast, smooth experience whether they are browsing from Zurich, London, or Singapore.

Commerce Integration and Multichannel Reach

Alongside content, the new platform also supports Ricola’s direct-to-consumer ambitions using Shopify for the eCommerce engine. Shopify is fully integrated into the site, providing localized e-commerce across markets. Thanks to the flexible content model in DatoCMS, editors can easily link content with product data, highlight seasonal offers, or curate product bundles without relying on development work.

The e-commerce setup also extends beyond the website. Content from DatoCMS is distributed across multiple touchpoints, including mobile apps. This helps Ricola maintain a consistent experience for customers, no matter where they engage with the brand.

The first rollout of the new platform launched in Switzerland, the UK, and international markets. Nine more countries followed within just a few months, with localization and product catalogs tailored to each region’s needs. Because the content structure was designed to support this flexibility from day one, the team could scale quickly without introducing manual workarounds.

Built to Evolve

The platform was designed not just to solve today’s problems, but to give Ricola the flexibility to adapt as the business grows. With DatoCMS’s modular API-first approach, new features and integrations can be added without reworking the core content structure.

For example, their rollout stack also includes Salesforce Service Cloud for customer service, SAP SuccessFactors for HR content, and Cituro for booking management. In the future, should the need arise to have these platforms (or more) connect with the CMS, integrations would be relatively straightforward thanks to the plugin ecosystem and webhook support, these services connect smoothly into the publishing workflow.

The editorial experience was another focus of the rebuild. Using DatoCMS’s real-time content previews, editors can see exactly how changes will appear on the site before publishing. Scheduled publishing allows the team to plan campaigns and product launches in advance, across all supported markets. Asset management is handled centrally through DatoCMS’s built-in media library, with global assets easily shared across regions while still allowing local teams to add their own.

AI tools were also used to speed up asset creation for the project, especially around content localization and creative production. The combination of flexible content models and automation helped the team stay on schedule and keep the launch process efficient.

A Platform That Supports Growth

Ricola’s new platform is fast, flexible, and built for scale. Content is structured, reusable, and easy to manage. Campaigns can be planned and rolled out efficiently across all markets, with a shared system that keeps the brand experience consistent everywhere.

The result is a digital setup that gives Ricola the freedom to grow its direct-to-consumer business, launch new products faster, and tell its story more effectively across all channels.

By choosing a headless, API-first architecture with DatoCMS at the center, Ricola now has a platform that is ready for whatever comes next.