Since 1989, a family in Northern Ontario has made organic fruit spreads under the watch of a black bear, a forager who only picks the best fruit. Today Crofter’s is on shelves at Walmart, Kroger, Publix, Sam’s Club and Costco, and in 2026 it rolled out fresh packaging built on one promise: Real Fruit First.
Crofter's Organic
From hard to find to one click away from the nearest shelf
Overview
Background
Problem
The new jars looked great, but as the client put it, a jar is “a tiny billboard. I can’t tell that story.” The website should have and it had fallen behind. Products were jumbled together and finding a store took too many clicks. The bear was on every page and explained on none. They had never connected all the dots.
Solution
Our brief was simple: find the product fast and leave thinking, “Oh, I get the bear.” We wrote the site as a story before designing a single page, then built it on a custom Shopify 2.0 theme. Find My Store is one click from anywhere, Premium and Just Fruit each get their own path, and Shopify Markets serves US and Canadian shoppers from one store, with e-commerce ready whenever Crofter’s is.
Connecting the dots
The first homepage concepts leaned vintage storybook, and the Crofter’s team wanted something fresher, so the bear got a little wilder. Now the homepage scene builds as you scroll, with hills, bushes and fruit filling in while the bear peeks out at different depths. Illustrated fruit turns real when you hover over it, and the cursor becomes a bear paw over anything clickable. Click the bear and he takes you to “Why The Bear,” the story the jar never had room for.
Crofter’s is a Canadian company, so Canada was never an add-on. US and Canadian shoppers each get their own version of the site from a single Shopify store, with custom theme work for market-specific navigation and content. The Crofter’s team edits the Canadian site themselves, and French is rolling out next. Food service and private label buyers get their own pages and contact paths, separate from the shopper experience.
The jar is still a tiny billboard.
Now the rest of the story has a home.
