Headquartered in Landsberg, Germany, RATIONAL has been going strong for the past 50 years in providing its customers with the best solution for cooking and digital kitchen management. With over 1,200,000 RATIONAL units on the market, RATIONAL cooking systems have become a standard in professional kitchens worldwide. The units are produced in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, the home of all combi-steamers, and Wittenheim in France, where the iVario is manufactured.

Taking us down memory lane with RATIONAL, Markus Paschmann, member of the executive board, and chief sales, and marketing officer, RATIONAL AG said, "The founder of RATIONAL, Siegfried Meister was not from a culinary background. He learned from his mother that combining steam and hot air improved dishes. After ten years of the company, he decided to focus only on combi-steamers, which was a super entrepreneurial decision. With a market share of 50% globally, today we are the number one in the world for combi-steamers."

Some of the products the company offers include iVario Pro, iCombi Pro, iCombi Classic, ConnectedCooking (digital kitchen management), and accessories.

RATIONAL has an upcoming new factory being built in Wittenheim, France, which will include training centers, R&D centers, and administration and will be the company's largest investment outside Germany. It is due to open by winter this year or spring next year.

Helping enhance local cuisines

According to Paschmann, RATIONAL always converts local dishes into its units to ensure that they offer more consistent quality food as compared to traditional equipment. He added, "We develop technologies that allow us to monitor the manufacturing process to ensure that we get the exactly defined output according to the customer's wishes."

ConnectedCooking- Digital kitchen management solution

ConnectedCooking from RATIONAL is a digital kitchen management solution that helps roll out cooking programs, update system software, and record HACCP data. Paschmann explained, "ConnectedCooking is our digital platform and energy monitoring is one of its benefits apart from asset management, recipe management, and recipe distribution. For example, if you run a chain business with ten outlets and make one recipe modification, with a finger click, you can distribute the recipe to all units in your restaurant chain and it could be anywhere in the world." He continued, "We will have online preventive maintenance modules in the future. That means, by measuring the current usage of components, we can predict potential failures with artificial intelligence and know when a component will break down and replace it." The platform also allows energy consumption monitoring and advice on how to save energy. Issues like gas leakages and open doors can be tracked through alerts to the user.

Maintenance of the unit is an important aspect that RATIONAL focuses on. He commented on this, "We design the unit for a very long lifetime. All the components we choose and design are tested for more than 10 years of durability and even higher. If a unit breaks down for whatever reason, we have a major service network in every country with qualified and trained service partners. We measure, educate, and test those people, and get reports about first-time fix rate and time to repair so that in case something goes wrong, we have the people in place."

A remarkable milestone

Last year, RATIONAL achieved a turnover of 1 Billion Euros for the first time in the company's history, which is a commendable feat. Paschmann said, "I think it is a remarkable milestone coming close to 50 years. But revenue is not our target. Our highest company objective is customer satisfaction. Our founder believed that if the customer is satisfied, it will create demand. People will talk positively about RATIONAL when they see the solution. This will result in growth in sales for us, better margins, better productivity, and better purchasing prices, and will lead to more profit that can be invested in the end. It is not revenue, but it is logic. From 1 billion within the next seven to ten years, we will probably see a 2 billion turnover. The market potential is out there."

Making inroads into the Indian market

In India, RATIONAL has a test drive for iVario with one dealer and believes that Indian food is the most suitable for iVario worldwide. Vishal Raman, managing director for RATIONAL India, talked about the Indian market and said, "In the past ten years that we have been operating in India, we have managed to create a very strong brand. We contacted customers who said they have RATIONAL combi-steamer in their kitchen. So, we have created that legacy. Here we see a massive potential for combi-steamer alone, besides iVario, which will be launched next year in India. We are excited about this."

Talking about their plans for the Indian market, Raman said, "We welcome the competition and want everyone to start coming to India. We are happy to work with them. It is about educating the Indian market right now. When a customer is educated about combi-steamer, being the brand leader, we benefit the most. We are very confident with the kind of product and brand we have already created for us in India."

Changing the future of cooking

Paschmann says the kitchen is the most energy-consuming part of any building. Thus, in the long run, kitchen equipment must be very energy efficient and RATIONAL contributes to this in a big way. He believes that the equipment will be smaller and more efficient in the future. "The future is the iCombi. In my dream, the kitchen has only iCombi and iVario and this will be the world's most efficient kitchen," he signed off.

RATIONAL participated at AAHAR 2023 from 14 to 18 March 2023 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi and showcased their latest developments and innovations to visitors.