New Canaan Farms - Texas Hill Country Shopify Redesign in Nine Weeks
New Canaan Farms is a family food maker in Utopia, Texas, in the Hill Country. Since 1979 they have made more than 70 jams, salsas, sauces and specialty foods by hand, in a historic water plant on Main Street. They are part of GO TEXAN, the Texas Department of Agriculture's program for products made in Texas.
Home cooks and hosts buying food for gatherings and gifts. Most visitors arrive on a phone, often from a recipe they saw on social media, and the fourth quarter is the biggest season. They also sell to corporate gift buyers and wholesale retailers.
The Challenge
Rebuild the store around what New Canaan Farms sells, food for gathering made in the Texas Hill Country, and launch before holiday shopping.
Two paths to purchase: shop by product type or by occasion
Product pages that sell, with recipes, pairings, reviews and real answers
The brand story on screen: Utopia, the family and the kitchen
Phone first, since more than half of visits come from phones
Structured content that search engines and AI assistants can read
Seasonal landing pages the team can run without a developer
The site looked like a price list. Products sat in plain grids. There was no path from a recipe to the jar it calls for, no cross-sell and no story. Nutrition Facts existed only as photos of the labels, and leftover formatting in 54 of 59 recipe posts hid the ingredient and direction lists from screen readers.
Solution
We redesigned New Canaan Farms on their existing Shopify theme in nine weeks, from kickoff on August 12 to launch on October 13, 2026. Our role covered design, build, product data, accessibility and AEO (answer engine optimization). Every section is one the team edits in the Shopify theme editor.
Six shop-by-occasion collections driven by product tags, next to shopping by product type, with existing collection addresses kept
Product pages built from structured product data: Nutrition Facts as live text, heat ratings, ingredients and 367 written questions and answers
Recipes linked to the products they use, with Add to cart on the recipe and links back from each product
Search that shows products and recipes side by side
A corporate gifting page, built first, with gift boxes that ship to many addresses from one order
A Your Basket cart drawer with a free shipping band that screen readers announce
Seasonal landing pages the team reuses every year
Used Shopify apps and theme
Result
The new site launched October 13, 2026, nine weeks after kickoff and ahead of the holiday season. Automated accessibility checks of key pages went from 56 issues to none. 66 of 73 jars now show a Nutrition Facts panel in live text, all 63 recipes carry Recipe markup, and 62 of 63 link to the products they use, so shoppers, screen readers and AI assistants read the same facts.