FoodBev com A world of food and drink Keeping up with Cosmetal Piergiorgio Burattini, Sales & Marketing Director, Cosmetal, Italy Vending Paris and BWCA reviews, plus Caffé Culture, Avex and WQA previews EVENTS SPECIAL REPORT Workplace coffee sponsored by SECTOR REPORT Cashless payments ACCESSORIES Testing and quality control INSIDE latest cooler, coffee and vending industry news and innovations www.foodbev.com/cooler
Instant boiling water sparkling options Drinking water solutions With its more than 30 years of experience in the design and manufacture of innovative drinking water solutions Cosmetal boasts a product range that is amongst the industry s widest, both in terms of the type of water supplied room temperature, chilled, hot, sparkling and the models available restaurants and bars. DOWNLOAD CATALOGUE APP MADE IN ITALY Recanati (Mc) Italy I Tel. +39 071 757991 I www.cosmetal.it I sales@cosmetal.it
Keeping up with Cosmetal Extending, innovating and revamping in the water cooler industry From catalogue apps and high-end coolers to water boilers and environmental wellbeing, Cosmetal sales and marketing director Piergiorgio Burattini fills us in on what the popular Italian water cooler brand has been up to over the past few years and comments on the company s exciting plans for the future. How was Cosmetal founded and how many years of experience does the brand have in the design and manufacture of water coolers? Cosmetal was founded at the end of the 1950s and has specialised in the design and manufacture of water dispensers for the past 30 years. The company began working with water bottles and became one of the first companies in Italy to explore mains-fed water dispensers in the late 1970s. We now have one of the broadest and most complete ranges in the industry, with models for the home, the office, the outdoors and restaurants. Cosmetal is an integral part of the history of this sector, a prestigious brand that combines tradition with innovation and that is currently heading towards a big new challenge; water boilers. Cosmetal recently enlarged its headquarters in Italy. Could you explain what changes were made and outline the reasons behind this development? At the beginning of 2012 the surface area covered by the new headquarters we built in 2003 was extended to reach a total of 8,500m 2, organised into six production lines. This large investment was a big change for the company because it led to the closure of the original production plant built in 1950, concentrating all activities into a single site. The extension improved logistical efficiency by creating a central warehouse and permitted us to increase production capacity. This has allowed the company to restructure itself in order to meet new and growing market demand. We currently have a daily manufacturing capacity of between 200 and 300 units, based on the type of product, for a total of 60,000 machines per year. The extension is a tangible sign of our faith in Made in Italy, a synonym of quality and good design. You also recently rejuvenated your digital presence with the launch of a new catalogue app. What has been the customer feedback on this? As part of our corporate philosophy innovation plays a role in every area and activity we are involved in, including advertising. Cosmetal was the first company in the sector to develop its catalogue into an app. Customers were immediately enthusiastic about this new tool that combines ecology, convenience and functionality. With the paper catalogue it was the company that chose what to display, the app changes this around and it is now the customer that decides what he wants to look at. In its first year the catalogue app had 1,000 downloads and over 21,000 visits, with Cosmetal s sales and marketing director Piergiorgio Burattini excellent feedback from our customers, who now have instant access to Cosmetal solutions for their customers. Could you describe some of your latest product launches and explain the technology behind these machines? We are just about to launch two new products, both of which are strategically very important for the company s future development; a water boiler and a high-end water dispenser. 34 COVER STORY www.foodbev.com/cooler
Click here to subscribe The water boiler is a new product area for Cosmetal. Until now, cold water, both still and sparkling, has been the company s core business; the new boiler now brings extra-hot water to the fore. In order to meet this challenge we have tried to differentiate and distinguish ourselves from competitors already established in the marketplace by concentrating on the excellence of Italian design to create a product that is both functional and highly aesthetic. The core of the technology used lies above all in the isolation of the hot part, where we have made use of technologies already used in the automotive sector, which is at the forefront of new materials and applications. Hi-Class, as the name suggests, is a high-end Cosmetal s boiler tap cooler. It features a front panel in black tempered glass with a brushed steel insert and limescale prevention treatment, a water dispensing area that can be adjusted in height, a 128x64 LED display and a soft-touch control panel. The machine dispenses cold, hot and sparkling water; the water temperature and CO 2 pressure setting is controlled electronically and can be viewed instantly on the display. The cold water dispensing speed can be adjusted to find the correct balance between continuous performance and speed. Subscribe today and save 25% Hi-Class www.foodbev.com/cooler Both of these new products are the start of a new cycle of development that we wish to pursue, concentrating on high quality materials and components. We aim for a water dispenser, Made in Italy, that incorporates the best technologies available on the Italian and European marketplace. This is why we rely on a designer from Milan (the heart of Made in Italy design) of undisputed talent; 100% top Italian design outside and 100% quality materials and components inside. COVER STORY 35 Subscribe today www.foodbev.com/subscriptions Telephone: +44 (0)1225 327866 Email: subscriptions@foodbev.com
Keeping up with Cosmetal Cosmetal s sales and logistics team You supply water coolers for a variety of markets, including the home, the office, schools and the hospitality sector. Which sector poses the most challenges? Is there a sector which shows more promise than others for 2015? All the different sectors we operate in present their own challenges, and constitute the new frontiers towards which product development must move. The main and common challenge lies in offering our customers advanced technological solutions at competitive prices. It s easy to improve quality at higher prices, the challenge is to do it with enhanced competitiveness. Here at Cosmetal we believe that the classic point-of-use water cooler, in the medium term, will present ever increasing challenges linked to the creation of newgeneration products able to reinvigorate the market. The hospitality sector also offers very interesting challenges in terms of hygiene that we are successfully tackling with our CU+Safepath antibacterial technology and the domestic market is still looking for new products with a well balanced price/ quality ratio. In 2015, we believe that the horeca and office marketplace will display positive trends due to a recovery of the economy. Cosmetal exports water coolers to the EU, the US and North Africa. Do clients in different regions have different requirements and specification requests? As well as the countries you mention we also export to South East Asia and Oceania. We are present in every continent. This is the biggest challenge for manufacturers. Having the flexibility required to satisfy the disparate demands imposed by the various marketplaces. There are enormous differences in the way water is consumed in different countries; many countries don t have water that is safe to drink for example. In order to be able to offer solutions that can be used outside Europe it therefore becomes essential to integrate refrigeration technologies with filtration techniques. Eco-friendliness is an important subject for the Cosmetal brand. Could you explain some of the schemes and technologies used by the company to facilitate environmental wellbeing? The ecological aspect is embedded in the products we produce, which constitute an environmentally friendly way to stay correctly hydrated. In addition to the innate ecological component of our products, we are careful to fit all the necessary devices to make them greener. On some products we offer R290, an eco-friendly gas. We also promote the use of CU+ Safepath technology, which makes use of copper, a 100% recyclable material. And, last but not least, we are also fitting energysaving features to all our new models, including the new boiler and High-Class model. Moreover, the company is strongly committed to respecting the environment. So much so, in fact, that the new plant was designed and created according to the most advanced construction techniques and in full conformity to energy saving regulations; the underfloor heating is an example of this approach. Some water cooler manufacturers are beginning to incorporate coffee dispensing facilities in their devices. Is this something Cosmetal is considering? 36 COVER STORY www.foodbev.com/cooler
Click here to subscribe We re not considering it, we are doing it. Coffee and water are perfect bed partners and this explains the convergence between these two drinks into machines that can dispense both of them. Cosmetal has been collaborating with several large coffee machine manufacturers for a couple of years now. We supply them with the cold and carbonated water component and to date we have already created four designs that incorporate water and coffee. The manufacture of coffee machines and water dispensers both require know-how and experience and this is why we believe that collaboration between specialised companies can give rise to superior quality products. Alongside our collaboration with coffee machine manufacturers, we are developing a solution that will allow us to combine coffee machines made by different manufacturers with our coolers, in order to create a product that is both modular and integrated at the same time. What trends are likely to sweep across the water cooler market in 2015? Are you expecting to sell more bottled or mains-fed devices in the next 12 months? For us, point-of-use has prevailed over the water bottle for several years now and we expect this trend to continue in 2015. The end customer is rightly becoming ever-increasingly demanding and we therefore expect to sell more and more CHWGs, ie solutions that offer cold, hot and carbonated water all in one. What s next for Cosmetal? Are there plans for any major developments in the near future? We have a large programme that we have recently agreed in the form of a three-year business plan with the proprietor. As well as renovating the range of traditional mains-fed units, we shall embark on transversal collaborations that will offer our customers new solutions for a variety of markets including home and vending. We are also launching two new collaborations that will allow us to release a machine for fruit juices in pods and hi-tech public drinking fountains which, despite being a predominantly Italian phenomenon, are now also conquering other nations and markets. Last but not least a new hospitality machine will be ready this year. There is a lot going on, in other words. Stay tuned with Cosmetal. NEXT ISSUE JUNE JULY 2015 Special report Coolers in the home Technology logistics and accessories Route optimisation and mobile technologies Event reviews Caffé Culture www.foodbev.com/cooler COVER STORY 37