Case Study: Smart & Final achieves data security and rapid store expansion with Check Point Software

Smart & Final Secures Corporate Data and Reputation, as It Drives Rapid Retail Expansion

Smart & Final, a Los Angeles–headquartered food retailer with 330 U.S. stores (plus 15 in Mexico), needed to protect millions of customers’ payment details and its corporate reputation while rapidly expanding. With a small IT team, the company needed standardized, centrally managed firewall security, rapid store rollouts with minimal manual effort, and protection against increasingly sophisticated attackers.

Smart & Final deployed Check Point appliances (initially 1180, later upgraded to 1430) to provide centralized, enterprise-class security and advanced threat prevention. Zero‑touch installation and centralized management let two IT engineers deploy firewalls to as many as 50 stores per week, standardizing protection across 330 locations, speeding new-store openings, reducing IT workload, and strengthening customer-data and revenue protection; plans include adding SandBlast zero-day protection.

Smart & Final

John Shi

Manager, Network and System Security Engineering