No more meals to serve within a thirty-minute drive of the central kitchen. But dishes that travel even for a hundred kilometers, and above all able to remain fresh for up to thirty days. Merit of the vacuum technology: the absence of oxygen, combined with a refrigeration between zero and four degrees, allow to preserve for a long time and not waste even a proportion.
This is the rabbit in the hat with which Elior, the French multinational catering company, hopes to revolutionize the market for school canteens, company canteens and hotel restaurant outsourcing. Innovation and diversification are the two keys with which the multinational hopes to put the losses inflicted by the pandemic behind it.
Yesterday the group announced the 2020-2021 balance sheet, closed in September: after the 483 million reductions suffered in the previous year, this time Elior managed to contain the drop in turnover to 3.69 billion euros and losses of 100 million. In the last quarter alone, there was a rebound in activity, which is now 85% compared to pre-Covid levels.
To test its new meal management model, Elior has chosen our country: “In Italy we have 21 centralized kitchens – explains Philippe Guillemot, Elior global CEO – over the next five years we will convert them all with a set of new technologies which will allow us to be much more flexible in serving and able to guarantee personalized meals and dishes that can be stored for a long time, without waste ». In order to transform Italian cooking centers, in addition to vacuum packing, Elior will bring preservation in a modified atmosphere “and also artificial intelligence – adds Guillemot – thanks to which we can guarantee on-demand supplies upstream and customer orders downstream”. The cost? “Only seven million euros – he says – the economies of scale that these technologies will guarantee us are much higher than the costs”.
In Italy, the first 2.0 kitchen is already active and is located in Bologna: it can supply from business lunches for SME employees to the tables of 4 and 5-star hotels whose restaurants are managed by Elior: today, with the effects of the pandemic that have not yet disappeared – says Guillemot – it is increasingly difficult to predict how many customers you will have both in a company canteen, due to smart working, and in a restaurant “. In Bologna, Elior has also recently acquired Emily, a company specializing in recipes capable of maximizing the use of the sous vide and modified atmosphere in the preparation of dishes. “Four years ago the competition was still on the price – says Guillemot – today instead we choose a collective restaurant instead of another based on quality”.