Egon Kofler: If you entered a professional kitchen in the past, the first thing you saw was the people – then a few pieces of technology. Now you see much more technology and fewer people. For me, the change is mainly reflected in the fact that companies have fewer staff members at their disposal – this concerns qualified, skilled workers in particular. The transition is very noticeable if you go to a restaurant, a hospital, or a canteen.

I would also like to briefly mention the pandemic: Covid massively accelerated the trend towards new eating habits; the to-go concept became much more important. Now the local restaurant around the corner even offers meals to take away – something which would have been unfathomable before 2020. The same applies to the delivery business.

There is another aspect to this issue, in that life and work are mixing more and more – family, leisure activities and job are no longer strictly separated. This also means that I eat when I'm hungry, no matter where I am; at 11 o'clock at my desk, on the train or at the playground with my laptop on my lap and holding a take-away meal in my hand.

To summarise, professional kitchens are undergoing a fundamental upheaval which we must prepare ourselves for. In the future, there will probably be even fewer staff members, and those that are there will have to work faster, be even more flexible and cope with an increased workload. As a company, we see a great opportunity to offer added value in this context.

Egon Kofler: I am pursuing the strategy of repositioning B.PRO in view of changing product needs and markets. We need to get ahead of the transition through proactive change management and make decisions now that will be relevant for the years to come. To this end, we have defined three central pillars to pursue: automation, digitisation and optimising the product portfolio.

Our goal is to revolutionise food distribution and thus play a decisive role in shaping the future of professional kitchens. The absolute focus is on our customers and the questions of which challenges they are facing, and where can we help them?

Egon Kofler: The idea is to look at their needs as a whole. Demand for individual products is declining. At B.PRO, we are involved in the process of equipping a professional kitchen at a much earlier stage. Ideally, customers want solutions for complete food serving and distribution processes.

We want to position ourselves as a reliable partner along the entire customer journey, a continuous companion beyond after sales and service. Of course, this also boosts customer retention, because a satisfied customer will certainly contact us again.

The questions we are constantly asking ourselves are these: What system solutions can we offer today? Which partner companies do we need to do so? What collaborations can we enter into? And all this with the aim of making the customer feel well looked after and that his or her needs are recognised.

Egon Kofler: I have spoken with lots of people in charge and asked time and again how I can help them. Selling individual products is not my main priority. I want to understand the customers' problems and offer systematic solutions. The outcome was that we wanted to begin with the issue of staff shortages – and this is where automation comes in. It is about technology becoming automated and taking over physically demanding as well as frequently repetitive tasks in commercial catering. You need fewer staff, the strain is taken off existing staff, and man and machine work hand in hand.

Here, among other things, we work with internal competences and rely on our subsidiary BRIMATO Catering Automation Technology GmbH, for example. We have a broad spectrum of expertise in automation.

Egon Kofler: Our portfolio in terms of automation already includes the BRIMATO and B.PRO cutlery sorting and packaging machines, the BRIMATO ASV-1 food automation system with six modules from the food conveyor belt to the tray sorter and the BRIMATO buffer and conveyor technology for an uninterrupted process chain in kitchen technology. This area is being further expanded and individually adapted to customer wishes. The goal is to automate food distribution holistically.

Egon Kofler: Digitisation creates simpler, more transparent processes. Hygiene standards can be ensured, for example, and verification requirements can be continuously complied with through digital HACCP documentation. Last but not least, evaluating the data serves as a basis for optimising processes in commercial kitchens.

Egon Kofler: The B.PROTHERM E food transport trolley is a good example. Its integrated sensors measure the interior temperature so that you can ensure at all times that the transported food is cooled or kept warm as needed. Combined with the QMSpot software tool, comprehensive digital hygiene, temperature and process management becomes possible. All important data can be viewed and managed paperlessly with a user-friendly interface, documented in compliance with the law and analysed in detail to optimise processes in commercial kitchens.

Egon Kofler: B.PRO will become even more of a system supplier, with a special focus on food distribution and food serving. We will take a holistic approach and think in terms of complete solutions for the various sub-areas in commercial kitchens and their processes. In order to be able to implement this strategy in the best possible way, we will continuously and consistently develop our service and product portfolio on the one hand, and on the other, increasingly cooperate with other companies whose offers perfectly complement ours.

Two good examples of this are our cooperation with temp-rite in the area of school catering and our cooperation with QMSpot in software-supported hygiene and quality assurance.

Egon Kofler: On the one hand, we rely on components from our subsidiaries and are committed to driving our own developments forward, and on the other hand, we enter into strong partnerships with both established as well as smaller companies (including start-ups) to create synergy effects and new opportunities.

Our focus is always on the needs of our customers as well as the challenges they will be facing in the coming years. A close dialogue based on trust is essential, which is why the presentation of our "Vision Kitchen Automation" at INTERNORGA 2023 was a starting point for many in-depth conversations about the demanding reality of the professional kitchen and its path to the future.

On this basis, concepts for the automation of various process steps on food distribution conveyors are now being developed together with our subsidiary BRIMATO – closely aligned with real-life practice.

In terms of further developing B.PRO into a system supplier, we have launched the JUNIOR-SERVE project, for example.

Egon Kofler: With JUNIOR-SERVE, we have touched on an issue that will become acute in 2026. This is the year when primary schools must ensure full-day provision. At this point at the latest, many of those responsible will be faced with a major problem because the entire supply chain has to be secured – against the backdrop of what are often low budgets and staff shortages which are also prevalent in this sector.

At B.PRO, we recognised the needs of potential customers early on, but we also knew that we can't do it alone. So we looked for partner companies with whom we could turn our vision into reality as quickly as possible. JUNIOR-SERVE, for example, emerged from this. JUNIOR-SERVE is an all-in-one serving system that provides practical and customised solutions for children's day care centres and schools for all-day catering – from delivery to regeneration and serving to returns. At the moment we are in the marketing and distribution phase. The first systems are established, and the feedback is very good.