Anyone who wants to be successful needs two things, a great idea and a strong will. Siegfried Meister, founder of RATIONAL AG, had both. He succeeded masterfully in developing a visionary idea into an incomparably successful product that changed the production process in industrial and commercial kitchens – the combi-oven. The high-performance multifunctional device has since become indispensable to professional kitchens everywhere; now, as it celebrates its 40th birthday, it looks back on an exciting journey of development.
RATIONAL combi-ovens can be found all around the globe—from the US aircraft carriers to company catering, from the White House to the Allianz Arena, from Buckingham Palace to that cosy little restaurant around the corner. Its many and varied applications have revolutionised work in large-scale kitchens all over the world, enabling them to deliver top-class results that delight chefs and customers alike all over the continent. The CD1, the legendary first combi-oven, was purchased in 1976 by Käfer, a family-owned company based in Munich.
Looking back on the past 40 years, one also recalls the days before the combi-oven; gigantic kitchen surfaces, meal preparation involving many different boilers, tilting fryers and conventional ovens. It could be stressful and hectic with manual monitoring and tedious manual labour, such as turning and moving food. Institutions that once merely provided communal catering now spoil employees and customers with quality dishes.
Like many great success stories, the combi-oven’s beginnings were humble. The year 1976 was one marked by technical innovations: Apple brought the Apple I on the market, thus shaping the personal computer era. Siegfried Meister’s invention of the combi-oven that same year had a similarly catalytic effect on the hospitality industry.
While watching his mother cook, peeking over her shoulder attentively as she prepared a goose, he hit upon the brilliant idea of combining cooking methods— steaming with moist heat, convection, and a “combi-steaming” method combining the two—into a single appliance. In order to guarantee consistent quality results, especially when preparing large amounts, he fitted the whole thing with a management and control system. This ensured that heat, air, and moisture were distributed particularly intensively and evenly within the cooking chamber. The combi-oven thus replaces 40 to 50 percent of conventional cooking appliances, such as ovens, steamer ovens, tilting fryers, boilers and grills. The combi-oven’s many additional benefits include not only qualitative aspects but also significantly shorter cooking times, up to 50% lower cooking losses, and up to 60% lower energy and water consumption rates compared to conventional cooking methods, and to top it all off, it takes up exceptionally less space—just one metre square.
Back then, Siegfried Meister had no idea that he and his innovation would soon have a decisive influence on the entire industry. Nowadays, 120 million meals are prepared worldwide in RATIONAL combi-ovens every day, and the 750,000th unit was recently delivered to the USA. The small founding team has now grown into one of the most successful mid-sized companies in Germany, with an impressive market share of around 54%. But dominant market share and years of continuous company growth were not the primary focus of Siegfried Meister’s efforts. What interested him most, and the company’s stated goal, was providing the maximum possible benefit to people preparing hot food in large and commercial kitchens. All RATIONAL employees, who act as so-called “entrepreneurs within the enterprise,” have the obligation and the desire to fulfill this promise to customers day after day.
The combi-oven’s developmental journey has been marked by a series of milestones in service innovation. The first programmable combi-oven was unveiled in 1991, followed by the ClimaPlus Combi in 1997, which set new standards in combi-oven technology by letting users regulate temperature and moisture down to exact percentages. CleanJet, the first fully automatic cleaning system, followed in the year 2000, making tiresome cleaning a thing of the past at last. Just a touch of a button, and the RATIONAL ClimaPlus Combi cleaned itself hygienically overnight.
Meister and his team became aware early on of the difficulty catering and foodservice businesses had in finding qualified personnel. As such, the invention of the world’s first SelfCookingCenter in 2004 was a logical milestone. The SelfCookingCenter was the first cooking appliance capable of preparing a variety of dishes perfectly at the touch of a button. This groundbreaking invention soon went on to solve numerous other challenges in the kitchen. For example, the CareControl system, unveiled in 2008, represented the first intelligent cleaning and descaling system on the market. Now, for the first time, combi-ovens could be operated without any type of water softening or regular descaling.
In the year 2011, RATIONAL unveiled the SelfCookingCenter whitefficiency. The new model was equipped with their patented HiDensityControl technology, a function that continues to guarantee powerful steam generation, dynamic air circulation and heat development as well as extremely effective dehumidification even today. The results – crisp crusts, crunchy breading and juicy roasts, even in large quantities.
Then, in 2014, RATIONAL invented the SelfCookingCenter 5 Senses and catapulted cooking quality to a whole new level. The SelfCookingCenter 5 Senses works with five senses – just like cooks do. It feels cooking chamber conditions and food consistency, detects product sizes and load quantities, thinks and plans ahead, learns from chefs and even consults with them on decisions. The appliance also impresses users with the exceptional baking results it delivers.
“But there’s always room for improvement,” says Dr. Peter Stadelmann, CEO of RATIONAL AG. “We draw inspiration from our company goal as we continue to work on providing even more benefits to people preparing hot foods in large and commercial kitchens,” he explains, and adds that he views personal responsibility and self-organisation among employees as essential building blocks to company success.
And RATIONAL’s focus and company strategy are spot on, as evidenced by the company’s continued business growth. The Bavarian company posted 9% growth in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the previous year, and key figures are still trending upwards.
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