An excellent partner of chefs for 39 years, Lainox has specialized in the design and manufacture of professional catering equipment, in particular combi ovens. A company that has made innovation its main strength: an always winning line, supported by an essential value – the team – that has rewarded it on the market. We talked about it with Marco Ferroni, Lainox’s General Manager.
What are your main strengths?
Our true strength is that we can cover all the needs of contemporary catering thanks to our products. Our offer is essentially based on three products: Naboo, the now famous Lainox combi oven, which has driven the turnover growth in recent years; Neo, the multifunction blast chiller that lets you, among many functions, cook and blast chill within a single machine, and, the latest addition, Oracle, which combines microwave, convection, and impingement technology in one machine, takes up very little space, it is easy to install without the need for a hood, and lets everyone transform any room into a proper restaurant without having to install an actual kitchen. Going back to the initial question, the answer is surely: innovation at the service of all those involved in professional catering.
What are the advantages for a professional to rely on a company like Lainox?
Choosing Lainox does not mean choosing just an equipment supplier, it means choosing a true partner. We do not just sell a product to the end customers, we accompany them, offering a series of services to allow them to take full advantage of the purchased products, for the entire life of the product itself.
When you buy a Lainox product, you also get, included in the price: Nabook, a virtual assistant that lets you connect all the equipment and manage it remotely; free training from one of our chefs directly at the customer’s home; the opportunity to participate in the Naboo Xperience, courses organized by Lainox throughout the country to learn how to better use Lainox technology, as well as being accompanied throughout the life of the product by a very high level after-sales service. For chains we also offer a service we call CAM (Customer Added value Management), which is basically a free consultancy service, by a team of experts, which starts from the design and customization of products and services and accompanies the chain step by step in all the stages of the project.
How much can good technology affect the quality and efficiency of a professional kitchen?
I strongly believe that if you want to turn the passion of cooking into a profitable business, you cannot ignore the use of technology in the kitchen. It is as if you asked a taxi driver to choose between using the old maps or GPS. The use of technology in the kitchen guarantees minimum and standardized costs, consistent quality, smaller spaces required by the kitchen, drastically reduced energy consumption and, above all, it eliminates repetitive routine work for the chefs so that they can concentrate on more important things. I hope I properly conveyed what difference it makes to use technology in the kitchen.
A tip for the chefs in choosing the equipment
I believe that today a chef, when designing a kitchen, or deciding to renovate it, cannot ignore choosing equipment that allows them the widest versatility and flexibility in carrying out all types of cooking techniques, from the most traditional to the most modern, to always offer their customers modern and creative menus. They must choose equipment that will lead them to reduce energy consumption and therefore fixed management costs. They must choose equipment that is easy to clean and maintain. They must choose connected equipment for remote maintenance and HACCP data management. They must also choose based on the after-sales service that the company can guarantee; of course it would be too easy now to advise your readers to choose Lainox.
With Naboo you have marked a fundamental milestone in the digital evolution of the kitchen: how is that going and what are the next steps?
When in 2013 we launched the first oven with Wi-Fi, connected to the internet, everyone thought we were a bit crazy and asked us: ‘What does the internet have to do with an oven?’. Just seven years later, connectivity, not only in the oven but in all kitchen equipment, has become a fundamental requirement for all chefs. Being the first allowed us to gain experience and knowledge in the world of connectivity, allowed us to develop Nabook, which means combining the classic services of connected equipment with a true kitchen management system, with which the chef can print the menus, calculate the food cost, organize the shopping list, etc., and even today we are the only ones who offer these services for free with the purchase of an oven. Being pioneers by DNA, our research and development team is constantly working to try to surprise the chefs once again with solutions that will simplify their work more and more, but for now I cannot reveal more than that.
Efficiency, performance, reliability, connectivity: what does the market demand today?
The market demands all of this but above all it asks for a company that does not disappear after the sale. The market does not ask for a supplier but for a partner who will accompany the customer day after day throughout the life of the product.
The secret of a successful company?
The recipe is very simple: to put the customer at the centre of everything, but it is easier said than done. What we have been trying to do in recent years is to transform a motto that everyone knows into daily behaviour and actions, involving all Lainox collaborators from first to last. It is a constantly evolving process that can be improved day after day; this is our commitment to all our customers.