Replacing paper flyers with a multi-channel retail system for a Thunder Bay grocer

The Challenge

Centennial Family Foods is a long-standing independent grocer in Thunder Bay. Their business ran on the same playbook most independent grocers in Northern Ontario rely on — a weekly paper flyer dropped through letterboxes and stacked at the door. The flyer worked, but it had a ceiling no one was talking about.

• Paper flyer reach was capped: distribution was geographic, not behavioural — a one-shot drop that hit every household once, regardless of whether they were a regular shopper or a passer-by.
• Zero feedback loop: no way to know who opened the flyer, who acted on a deal, or which items drove the most foot traffic.
• Rising print + distribution costs: ink, paper, and door-to-door drop costs were climbing every quarter, and inflation was making weekly flyers a real line-item question.
• No owned audience: Centennial didn't have a database of their own shoppers. Every deal was an anonymous broadcast.
• Digital presence was thin: the website was outdated, local search visibility was weak, and social media was inconsistent.

The System We Built

Frayze didn't replace the flyer — we replaced the entire distribution model around it. The weekly deals stayed (they're the heartbeat of the business), but the flyer became one output of a connected retail system, not the whole strategy.

1. New Website Built for Weekly Deals

We rebuilt the Centennial Family Foods website from the ground up — mobile-first, fast, and structured around the one thing shoppers actually come for: this week's deals. Every page is optimized to surface the current flyer, store hours, location, and the call-to-action that matters most for an independent grocer: get them in the door.

2. Digital Flyer + Email & SMS Distribution

The paper flyer was reborn as a digital asset distributed every week via email and SMS to an owned subscriber list. Customers opt in once, then get the flyer the moment it goes live — faster than the print version ever could, and trackable end-to-end. Open rates, click-throughs on featured items, and SMS engagement all feed back into next week's flyer design.

3. Database Management — Centennial's Owned Audience

We built the database Centennial never had. Every email and SMS subscriber, every web form, every loyalty signup feeds one source-of-truth list, segmented by behaviour and geography. The database is now the most valuable marketing asset Centennial owns — and unlike rented audiences on social platforms, it belongs to them.

4. Local SEO + SEO

We rebuilt Centennial's Google Business Profile, structured the website for local search (schema, weekly deal markup, location-specific landing pages), and built citations across the directories that matter for an independent grocer in Northern Ontario. The goal: when someone in Thunder Bay searches for groceries, deals, or specific weekly specials, Centennial shows up first.

5. Ad Management + Social Media

We took over the paid and organic social side of the business — Meta and Google ads targeted to Centennial's actual catchment area, retargeting flyer subscribers who haven't visited the store in 30+ days, and a consistent social posting cadence that keeps the brand visible between flyers. Every dollar of ad spend is tied back to a measurable outcome, not just impressions.