Company Overview
Sweet Harvest Foods is a worldwide leader in honey procurement and distribution — one of the largest processors of 100% pure, all-natural honey in the country. With offices in Minnesota, California, and Michigan, the company distributes honey, molasses, and agave to food manufacturers, national retail and grocery chains, and food distributors worldwide.
The Problem: Doubling in Size
When a larger company acquired Sweet Harvest Foods, IT Director Brian Pleschourt found himself managing a very different organization than the one he'd signed up for. The company instantly more than doubled in size, and that added a California location and a Michigan location combined with the two Minnesota locations.
Before the merger, Pleschourt was the sole IT staff member. Fortunately, he had already begun building a partnership with Marco six months prior — not because he knew what was coming, but because he was planning ahead.
Pleschcourt states:
"I was the only person, so I was busy. Fortunately, I partnered with Marco six months before the merger. I wasn't aware of the merger but was planning for future growth. I needed support for things that were outside my knowledge. That's why I went to a hybrid solution. I liked the flexible support offerings."
With roughly 30 years of IT experience, he initially needed support only for more complex tier-two and tier-three issues that fell outside his immediate expertise.
However, as Sweet Harvest Foods expanded into a multi-location, multi-domain operation, that hybrid approach evolved. Pleschourt added Marco's Support Desk on a full-time basis — remotely servicing all four locations across the country.
The Solution: Fully Managed IT
Marco's Managed IT services gave Sweet Harvest Foods the foundation it needed to adapt, mitigate risk, and standardize systems across all four sites.
Building the Infrastructure
The goals were clear: eliminate single points of failure, standardize across all platforms, store data in one secure, redundant environment. A Consulting Systems Engineer worked closely with Pleschourt on the planning and implementation of the complete upgrade.
Here's what was included:
- Backup as a Service (BaaS)
- Private cloud (IaaS)
- Reliable ISPs for each location
- Teleconference rooms
- Cisco Meraki
- Redundant firewalls
- Redundant internet
- Redundancy in switches
Pleschourt appreciated the quality of the Cisco products Marco recommended — particularly the visibility and remote management capabilities of the firewalls, switches, and access points, which he described as extremely advantageous.
A Partnership, Not a Subcontract
Although some IT directors may feel threatened by bringing in an outside partner, Pleschourt never did. He saw the relationship clearly from the start — Marco wasn't a replacement for internal IT leadership. It was an extension of it.
"I think a company still needs an IT leader," Pleschourt states. "Marco is my IT department and business partner. I've never felt endangered by the fact that I've brought Marco on board. I was drowning in work, too, at that point."
Ongoing Collaboration
Marco also helped Pleschourt navigate the ongoing work of merging multiple domains into one — a project that continued well after the initial infrastructure work was complete.
The Results
For Pleschourt, the value of the partnership went beyond any single project or technology deployment.
What mattered was having a team he could rely on when things got complicated — and technology always gets complicated.
He adds, "You can't anticipate everything that is going to happen on a project. Marco excels at being very responsive to change."
The partnership also gave him something that solo IT leaders rarely get: backup. Not just technical backup, but the confidence that came from knowing the right expertise was always within reach.
Now, Pleschourt contributes to Marco's Leadership Council — a group of customers who provide direct feedback on Marco's products and services — reflecting a relationship that has grown well beyond a typical vendor engagement.
He concludes, "I recommend Marco, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that you have a deep bench of experts. I'm very satisfied. Marco doesn't present itself like an IT subcontractor. I feel we are true business partners. We share responsibility."
Important Takeaways
Rapid growth doesn't give IT teams time to prepare.
For Brian Pleschourt, the merger that doubled Sweet Harvest Foods overnight could have been a crisis. Instead, it became manageable — because the right partnership was already in place before the growth hit. That's the difference between reactive IT and strategic IT. Having a partner with a deep bench of specialists means you're never facing a problem alone, no matter how fast things change or how specialized the need.
If your IT team is stretched thin — or you're facing growth that your current infrastructure wasn't built to handle — our team can help you figure out where to start.
