How 3Bears automated EDI to scale across international retail
About
3Bears is a Munich-based food brand known for its oat-based products. After gaining national attention on “Die Höhle der Löwen” in 2017, the company grew into one of Germany’s most recognizable food brands, expanding its product portfolio and presence across leading retailers.
Today, its ambitions extend beyond Germany. In 2025, 3Bears launched with Albert Heijn in the Netherlands and is preparing its expansion into the UK, supported by brand ambassador Harry Kane.
Behind that growth is an increasingly complex supply chain: 3Bears works with multiple external producers, a logistics provider and dozens of retail customers across different markets.
Challenge
As 3Bears grew, so did the amount of coordination required to keep products, orders and data moving between all parties.
Producers exchanged Excel files containing production volumes, stock levels and best-before dates. Orders, production planning and deliveries involved long email chains. Retail customers brought their own EDI requirements, while orders, invoices and credit notes still required manual handling across different systems.
The setup worked at a smaller scale, but higher volumes and more retail customers increasingly meant more manual work, more room for errors and less visibility for the team.
International expansion added another dimension. Connecting a major customer such as Albert Heijn meant supporting its technical and EDI requirements without turning every new retail listing into another IT project.
3Bears needed a way to connect its growing retail network directly to Xentral, automate document exchange and add new customers without increasing operational overhead.
Solution
3Bears connected its Xentral ERP to Procuros, creating one connection between its internal system and its growing retail network.
Procuros manages the EDI connectivity and customer-specific requirements in the background. Orders now flow directly from retail customers into Xentral, while invoices and credit notes are automatically sent back through the required channels and formats.
For the 3Bears team, this fundamentally simplifies how new retail connections are managed. Instead of coordinating individual EDI implementations, the team requests a new connection through Procuros and Procuros handles the setup and ongoing requirements.
With the native Procuros–Xentral connector, new customers can be connected within a few days without a long or complex IT project. This allowed 3Bears to become EDI-ready across over 30 customers while keeping Xentral at the center of its operations.
The same infrastructure also supports international expansion. When 3Bears launched with Albert Heijn, Procuros handled the connectivity required to bring the new retailer into its existing setup without building another standalone integration.
And the automation goes beyond orders. Invoices and credit notes now flow directly between Xentral and retail customers, while 3Bears is also among the first customers testing automated remittance advice processing.
I just request a connection in the portal and Procuros takes care of the rest. This makes my job much easier – less manual work and a lot of time saved.
Results
By automating EDI connectivity and document exchange, 3Bears now saves more than 60 hours of manual work every month.
Orders, invoices and credit notes move automatically between over 30 retail customers and Xentral, significantly reducing manual uploads, email coordination and errors for sales and finance.
At the same time, connecting a new retailer has become a repeatable process rather than a new EDI project. New customers can be added within days, allowing 3Bears to expand its retail network and enter new markets without rebuilding its connectivity infrastructure each time.
Instead of adding operational complexity with every new retailer, 3Bears can add customers, markets and transaction volume on top of the same EDI infrastructure.
I’m super happy with the great service at Procuros. All processes related to invoices, credit notes and orders work smoothly and with very few errors. Special requirements for certain customers we have are taken care of.
