Catering equipment supplier Rational is highlighting seven major innovations it has launched over the past 18 months at GulfHost 2017.
Catering News Middle East spoke to CEO Michael Fuchs, managing director, Simon Park-Davis and Alexander Wimmer, senior area vice president BD EMEA on the sidelines of the event.
What products are you showcasing at GulfHost?
Simon Park-Davis: Today we have the new CombiMaster Plus, the new SelfCooking Centre, the VarioCooking Center and our ConnectedCooking 2.0. Today is our first chance to showcase this in the Middle East – we’ve had seven innovations between last February and September this year. This year we launched the CombiMaster Plus and the XS version and we are promoting the VarioCooking Center, launched in January last year. We were recognised at the GulfHost Awards for innovation in all products and technology and IoT as well.
What are your plans for the region?
Alexander Wimmer: Our mission at Rational is to offer people working in kitchens the most beneficial solutions. We want to understand local needs and offer local solutions therefore we established a local team of 13 experts – we basically set up the infrastructure with the local office, with the kitchen with the ability to test and to get people interested and to give them the opportunity to test drive our products. We will further invest in the market and serve our local customers and interested parties.
What are the key trends in ovens and how is Rational responding?
Michael Fuchs: Customers more and more want a one-stop shop when it comes to their kitchen solutions and we offer two product lines – one is the CombiMaster Plus and the SelfCookingCenter where we prepare food in a climate, whereas with the VarioCooking Center we prepare food with contact heat or we boil or prepare it in liquids. Both products are market leaders on a global basis in that particular sector – leading by efficiency and reliability in terms of use for the end customer.
Alexander Wimmer: More and more customers have developed an awareness of energy efficiency and ease of use – it’s getting more and more expensive and the level of educated staff is becoming a bottle neck all over the world. Both of our product lines operate with the same MMI, so if you understand one product, it’s much easier for you to operate the other product. That of course makes it easier for a head chef in the kitchen to keep the training level up, regardless of staff turnover.
What’s your key message for the hospitality industry at the show?
Simon Park-Davis: It’s important to know we’ve made big investments in the past five years and that will be recognised now by the market. We will continue to make these investments to make sure we deliver the maximum benefit to the customer. Innovation is important to us, we’ll always need to keep our competitive advantage and we have to be able to support this. We’ll always invest the capital so we have the support locally from each of our customers and peace of mind as well as reliability and life cycle of product, so we guarantee the ROI but also efficiency within the operation.
Rational is exhibiting at GulfHost, Dubai World Trade Centre hall 3 stand C20 from 18 – 20 September.
