This year’s theme for the October 20th International Chefs Day is Healthy Food for the Future, which focuses on ensuring a healthy planet for future generations, while aiming to teach children about what impact food production and consumption has on the environment.
“During these uncertain times, we must boost our immune systems and teach both children and adults of the benefits of healthy food, which will help in the long run to fight off any future illnesses,” said Vanessa Marquis, Chairman of the International Chefs Day Committee.
“We have a duty to prepare chefs worldwide to educate and prepare children for a healthier life through other means if they can’t in person – not even letting a pandemic get in the way,” she added.
This call to action comes as Nestlé Professional and the World Association of Chefs Societies (Worldchefs), who teamed up in 2014, join forces again on October 20, 2020 for International Chefs Day to teach children across the globe about the importance of healthy eating through organized fun-filled workshops worldwide.
Healthy Food for the Future
This year’s theme is Healthy Food for the Future, which focuses on ensuring a healthy planet for future generations, while aiming to teach children about what impact food production and consumption has on the environment.
As part of the workshops, a toolkit has been prepared to encourage children to turn everyday recipes into appetizing food that is enjoyable to make and nutritious. It contains instructions, materials, social media tips and healthy recipes created by professional chefs.
In 2019, over 69 000 children and more than 1800 chefs took part in the annual event, doubling from the year before.
Impact of good food
With plant-based diets on the rise, Vanessa explained why now is the time to encourage children to eat and cook more plant-based foods and recipes, giving them easy access to fruits and vegetables they may not have tried before.
“Their immune systems are still developing and getting the right nutrients and vitamins through a proper diet will help them in the future,” she explained. “This year’s International Chefs Day will help children see and taste delicious recipes that are more geared towards plant-based diets.”
Growing up in a family which worked for large produce companies, fresh vegetables were always on hand at her childhood home, with her mother regularly cooking homemade meals.
Good food made a significant impact on Vanessa and she joined culinary school after leaving a career in banking, working her way up the ranks to become an Executive Chef. She said: “As a female chef, there were many times I felt I must work harder than others to get there, but I simply worked with my head down knowing I am equal to anyone else in the kitchen.
“I continue to give it my all for Worldchefs and ‘Prepare Children for a Healthy Life’,” she added.
Value of bringing knowledge to children
Emmanuel Lorieux, Executive Chef for Nestlé Professional, also stresses the value in teaching children to eat well, choose good products and instill healthy eating habits.
Having grown up next to a restaurant in Normandy, France, he was surrounded by the sights and smells of nutritious, homemade meals. With his aspiration to travel, this also steered his career and he completed his apprenticeship at a 1-star Michelin restaurant before working as a chef in the French Army, and with Le Méridien Hotels in Paris, Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, Bora Bora, and San Diego.
“When I was younger, my mother bought fresh food in the market and cooked it at home. But these days, parents don’t have much time as they are both working, so it’s quite often easier to cook frozen meals,” said Emmanuel.
“It’s very important to bring knowledge to youngsters in the classroom, focusing on ingredients that are good for the planet and sustainability. For this year’s event, we have recipes that are full of fresh vegetables and homegrown ingredients.
“We work well with Worldchefs to develop materials and collaborate with member chefs to create these healthy recipes – we believe we can all make a difference to children from all backgrounds,” he added.
For information about International Chef Day and if you are planning to host a Healthy Food for the Future workshop, please contact Vanessa Marquis at [email protected]. To download the Virtual Event Toolkit, visit www.internationalchefsday.worldchefs.org.
About Nestlé Professional
Nestlé Professional is passionate about serving the out-of-home industry, using its global experience and know-how to help accelerate the businesses of its foodservice and hospitality industry partners. Via its leading brands and products, Nestlé Professional shares its solutions and innovations to help customers and operators make more possible as they serve and delight their clients and consumers.
Kyona Mustard Cress has a mild mustard flavour with notes of cauliflower. The colour of the cress gives it a playful character.
Kyona Mustard Cress
Kyona Mustard Cress goes well with hearty meats and fish, such as beef tenderloin or skate wing. It also combines well with different cabbages and potato. A mustard soup is only complete after a topping with fresh Kyona Mustard Cress.
A traditional Dutch product which is still cultivated in the Netherlands today. Visitors to the Netherlands often think that the many yellow fields which can be seen in the summer are rapeseed fields. Actually, most of the fields are mustard fields. Mustard is primarily used as a green fertiliser. But the seed is harvested for Koppert Cress and for the mustard industry.
Moai Caviar is known as ‘Umibudo’, the Japanese word for ‘Sea Grapes’ or ‘Green Caviar’. An edible seaweed with tiny bubbles on its stems, which remind us of a small bunch of green grapes or fish roe.
Fresh Seagrapes
The bubbles break easily on the tongue, releasing a slightly salty taste of southern sea freshness. When used raw it is a visually attractive ingredient with a gel-like, aqueous mouth-feeling.
https://youtu.be/emQn_oj_Vp4
The Caviar of Seaweeds
Jonnie Boer (De Librije***)
Dutch 3-Michelin-star chef Jonnie Boer (De Librije *** – Zwolle, The Netherlands) calls it “The caviar of seaweeds” and is very happy with this Dutch version of this seagrape. Together with chef Nelson Tanate they are Moai Caviar in a recently introduced signature dish with oysters, goat cheese, different pickles and salty vegetables.
https://youtu.be/fDlsF0uah3w
Really Fresh
Until now the sea grapes were only available in preserved brine water. With the Moai Caviar this period came to an end. The preserved version is being harvested on the reefs of the Pacific subtropical waters. Before using this preserved version you have to rinse them in tap water to desalinate, the unique bubble-structure comes back partly. With the alternative, the Koppert Cress grown Moai Caviar, you always have the freshest original experience, special mouth-feeling and is ready-to-use.
Rinse lightly, remove access moisture and eat it raw like sashimi. Exposing Moai Caviar quickly to ice water, will enhance the texture and improve the taste. Be careful not to apply dressing from above, because the sea grapes will wither as a result.
Origin
The origin of the word ‘Moai’ is derived from a group of elders in Okinawa, Japan, one of the original Blue Zones. Koppert Cress has always been inspired by the Blue Zones. These live-long friends live an extraordinarily better and longer life than almost anyone else in the world. The origin of the Moai Caviar is traced back to the area of Japan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. In their natural habitat, the plants grow very fast and are an important source of healthy nutrition for the locals. The sea grapes are being used in a traditional way as salty vegetables, contain some valuable nutrients and all parts of the plants are edible.
Alshaya Group join forces with WEF to support a sustainable future across MENA
Through its membership of the World Economic Forum’s Regional Action Group for the Middle East and North Africa (RAG MENA), Alshaya Group this week (14th September 2020) joined a group of government, business and civil society leaders from across the region to endorse the Principles of Stakeholder Capitalism for the Middle East and North Africa which are designed to inform an inclusive, sustainable and resilient recovery for the region.
The full text of the WEF news release can be found here.
The seven principles outlined in the WEF announcement are:
1. Crafting inclusive economic policies and a new social contract 2. Stimulating economic integration 3. Reshaping education systems 4. Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution 5. Promoting environmental sustainability 6. Mitigating global health risks 7. Committing to good and agile governance
Commenting , Mohammed Alshaya, Executive Chairman of Alshaya Group said: “The Alshaya Group is very proud to be a signatory of the seven ‘Principles of Stakeholder Capitalism’ that can guide the MENA region as we respond collectively to new challenges in a new era. As regional leaders we share a common responsibility to help shape a dynamic, inclusive, sustainable and prosperous future that benefits society as a whole.”
WEF announced the initiative on Monday 14th September 2020.
This article was originally published here. Learn more about Alshaya Group, visit www.alshaya.com/en.
Why Upfield Launched Its A Better Plant-Based Future Campaign
We catch up with Dr Jeanette Fielding, Chief Corporate Affairs and Communications Officer at Upfield, to discover the motivation behind its new A Better Plant-Based Future campaign
At Upfield, we’re on a mission to a Better Plant-Based Future. Transformation of the food system is vital.
The current food system, which relies heavily on mass meat and dairy farming for consumption, is not sustainable. People around the world are beginning to make more informed decisions about the foods they are putting into their body, decreasing their meat and dairy intake, and embracing plant-based foods for health, sustainability and ethical reasons.
As the world’s largest plant-based nutrition company, we have a part to play by offering consumers a range of plant-based foods, including our iconic plant-based butter, margarines, plant-based spreads and vegan cheeses.
But it’s not a mission we’re driving alone.
As well as offering consumers great plant-based alternatives to dairy, A Better Plant Based Future docu-series was our way of giving a platform to four (for now) inspirational pioneers who are championing a plant-based diet and who are showing daily why it is so important to contribute to a healthier, more environmentally sustainable world for all.
Can you explain the campaign in a nutshell?
A Better Plant-Based Future is about challenging people to embark on their own individual healthy, sustainable eating journeys and reduce the environmental impact of their dietary habits.
We wanted to encourage people to try going plant-based for a day so that they could see how accessible, affordable and familiar it can be through making simple plant-based swaps for meat and dairy products.
Our mini docu-series showcases four plant-based pioneers; in the UK, the founder of the vegan Green Gazelles Rugby team and The Vegan Nigerian – a chef who runs plant-based cooking workshops on Nigerian traditional dishes.
In the US, a vegan butcher brother and sister duo in Minneapolis who are making vegan equivalents of the foods we love to eat, and a soul food vegan chef in Compton, LA.
They all share a common vision of making plant-based diets accessible, without making compromises on taste or tradition.
Every dietary change is valuable, and people can start anywhere. We are fans of simple swaps, whether that’s switching out dairy butter for a plant-based butter or margarine like Flora or Flora Plant when baking a cake, or using Violife vegan cheese to sprinkle over pasta.
You haven’t always been a plant-focused company – when and why did you decide to make the transition?
Our company has been a leader in plant-based spreads from the very beginning.
In recent years, we have focused on developing our plant-based margarines, butters, creams and vegan cheeses with an emphasis on great taste, allowing consumers to make ethical, healthy and sustainable food choices. Our focus is also to do this with natural ingredients.
Although we have always relied on plants for our products, our formation as a new company two years ago gave us the opportunity to drive a better plant-based future as our raison d’être, updating our product portfolio and advocacy to champion plant-based innovation.
What kind of response did you get when Flora turned into a fully plant-based brand?
When we decided to relaunch Flora as 100% plant-based, we knew that we would find a welcome audience in the ever-growing consumer base in the UK who identify as vegan. However, we also wanted to support caterers in facing the challenge of removing concerns around allergens in the kitchen.
We trialled the new range with Alexis Gauthier, chef patron of Michelin-starred London restaurant Gauthier Soho, and we were overjoyed with the warm response from classically trained French chefs who were just as delighted by our new product as we were.
What role do you think that larger companies can play in nurturing and supporting smaller vegan businesses? How do the two live alongside each other well?
Collaboration between the growing network of plant-focused and vegan businesses is ultimately to the benefit of all.
We are inspired by the work that small businesses and plant-based entrepreneurs are doing, and the docu-series we produced for A Better Plant Based Future celebrates this. We are privileged to be able to give this platform to people who are doing amazing things in this space.
Ultimately, we’re all part of the same ecosystem – the plant-based movement as a whole. We have shared goals around health and sustainability, and we all have a part to play in encouraging consumers to opt for more sustainable and healthy products by reducing their meat and dairy intake.
What actions are Upfield taking to ensure its products are more sustainable?
As a sustainable business, we need to monitor, understand, and correctly communicate the impact of the foods we produce. That is why we work with Quantis, an international sustainability consultancy specialising in environmental measurement. They conducted Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for many our products, so we can track the carbon emissions, land use and water use connected with our products.
Based on a large scale LCA, assessing our plant-based margarines across 21 European and North American markets, Quantis concluded that our products have a 70% lower carbon impact, use only half of the water and require two-thirds less land than dairy butter.
What would be your advice on the first steps a company should take if they are looking to become more sustainable?
To be a sustainable food company, you must first be aware of the environmental impacts of your entire supply chain.
Knowing how the ingredients you use affect the environment, the climate and local communities can help to direct procurement decisions and improve sustainability goals.
Viewing a company’s operations through the framework of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is a useful way to see where you already operate sustainably, and where you need to improve.
The campaign launch is only the beginning. We are hoping to inspire a global movement of people who are making better informed food choices.
Our goal is to show that healthy and sustainable diets can be accessible and enjoyable to all and plant-based foods such as plant butter, margarines, creams and cheeses have a great role to play in that.
We will continue to find innovative ways to demonstrate this, break down misconceptions, and drive positive change in the health of our consumers and for the sustainability of our planet.
At Upfield we’re consistently innovating, leading by example, and driving change. We are proud to be a company that is committed to a more sustainable and healthier future for all of us.
This article was originally published in Vegan Food & Living. You can learn more about the author below.
For more information on Upfield and their A Better Plant-Based Future campaign, visit www.abetterplantbasedfuture.com/en.
About Jeanette Fielding
Jeanette is the Chief Corporate Affairs & Communications Officer at Upfield.
Jeanette holds a PhD in Nutrition and Food Science, a Masters in Human Nutrition, a Bachelor of Biological Science and Graduate Diploma in Business Administration.
Jeanette joined Upfield after twenty years at some of the world’s largest consumer products and healthcare companies. She has a reputation for building corporate reputation, managing reputational risks, building stakeholder relationships, and developing strategy and policies for the most critical issues facing business.
The tiger symbolises strength, dynamism and passion. Characteristics that are called for day in day out in the kitchen. The eagerly anticipated reopening of restaurants has so far only experienced a small, cautious upward trend. That’s why it is all the more important at the moment to continue to nurture and maintain the passion for cooking.
Friedr. Dick would like to embody this with the limited special edition of the forged Santoku knife from the Premier Plus series, featuring the expressive tiger motif and the slogan “STAY HUNGRY” on the blade. Amongst other things, the tiger also stands for determination and organisational talent, which are also two qualities that have to be present in a kitchen, whether in a commercial setting or at home. Passion, resilience and discipline are required when you train to become a chef and these qualities are fulfilled not only by a tiger but also by the forged Santoku knife. The Santoku knife, originating in Asia, stands for 3 virtues, which represent excellent, versatile properties when cutting meat, fish and vegetables.
The tremendous power of the tiger to overcome this unprecedented crisis should at least be symbolised in the special edition from Friedr. Dick.
Forged from a piece of steel, perfectly balanced and with a high-quality coating on the blade as well as a unique marking – the perfect tool for creativity and inspiration when cooking. A special reinforced ceramic hybrid coating is applied to the knife blades. This antibacterial non-stick coating reduces cuttings from sticking and allows easy cleaning. In addition, ceramic particles ensure the best sliding properties with reduced force and high wear resistance.
The special edition, limited to 500 pieces, will be available from specialist dealers from October 2020.
Friedr. Dick is the only manufacturer worldwide who offers a complete range of knives, sharpening steels, ancillary items for chefs and butchers as well as grinding machines, sharpening machines and knife cleaning devices. The long-standing tradition and experience of manufacturing products for chefs and butchers allow a continuous development of innovative products. Input from customers, especially end-users and our own ideas are converted into high-quality products.
Best Selling Author & Award Winning Innovation Expert And Thought Leader
Never before in history have companies all over the world and in every conceivable industry been simultaneously challenged to rethink and reinvent their core business strategies overnight. This imperative was unexpectedly thrust upon all of us in the early Spring of 2020.
Prior to that point, we may have acknowledged that we live in an age of turbulence where the threat of disruption is ever-present, but none of us were truly prepared for the figurative meteor strike that came in the form of COVID-19. With cataclysmic force, the Coronavirus pandemic literally changed everything, everywhere, all at once. Yet, in the face of such an unprecedented crisis, some organisations managed to display the most amazing capability for resilience, reinvention and renewal.
One outstanding example is Electrolux Professional.
This Swedish multinational company, headquartered in Stockholm, is one of the world’s largest professional appliance makers, and was until recently a subsidiary of Electrolux Group. Its products and solutions are mostly aimed at food and beverage industries – restaurants, hotels, bars and cafes – as well as professional laundry applications – for example, in hotels, hospitals, care homes, apartment blocks, or commercial laundry businesses.
When the health crisis hit in the first quarter of 2020, and the company’s sales suddenly dropped off a cliff, the people at Electrolux Professional took swift action by focusing all their efforts on customer-centric innovation and bold strategic renewal in the shortest possible timeframe. The results have been astounding and serve as a true inspiration for would-be innovation champions and business model strategists in all kinds of industries and markets.
Let’s examine their story.
The worst timing in the world?
Electrolux Professional, formerly a division of Electrolux AB since its inception, was registered as a stand-alone company on March 23rd, 2020. In retrospect, of course, coinciding as this did with the widespread outbreak of Coronavirus, it might appear to have been the worst time in the world to separate from the mothership. On the other hand, this move may also be precisely what gave Electrolux Professional the autonomy and self-determination it needed to drive rapid and rampant change through strategy innovation.
Obviously, the transition to a new corporate status had been planned far in advance, so the date was simply an unhappy coincidence. But, by around mid-March 2020 – exactly when the global health crisis was at its inflection point and about to go into a steep exponential curve – the people at Electrolux Professional found themselves setting out on an ambitious new business venture just before the pandemic was to slash their sales.
The foundations for the company’s success had seemed sound enough. A long and proud history of innovation. A globally respected brand. A solid financial record. A loyal international customer base. A wide portfolio of world-class products. An amazing team of people. A five-year strategic plan. A legacy of excellence as part of Electrolux AG.
What could possibly go wrong?
All hands on deck!
In the space of just a few weeks in March 2020, our world became an unrecognisable place. Empty city centers. Closed businesses. Collapsing economies. Quarantined citizens. Overcrowded hospitals. A crisis like none of us had ever experienced. How would Electrolux Professional fare in such a precarious environment?
It’s not hard for a company to look good when the sun is shining, but it is the storm that tests the true character, capability and culture of any organisation. When times get tough, will the company’s people pull together to cope with the challenge as one big team or will they pull apart and become divided against each other?
During an economic crisis, the knee-jerk reaction of many organisations is to quickly start reducing headcount. Unfortunately, this response was all too common as soon as markets first went into COVID-19 lockdown. By contrast, Electrolux Professional invited all its people to join the effort to weather the gigantic storm, deploying their creativity to help the company rethink and reinvent its way through the crisis.
Within a few weeks of the first signs of trouble, the call went out for everyone in the organisation to participate in the innovation process – “All hands on deck!” The entire workforce was asked to think up and submit ideas for dealing with the increasingly critical external situation.
And that’s exactly what people did. Just over a week later, the company’s executives were already sifting through a rich portfolio of potential opportunities for solving customers’ problems and driving new growth, some of which were completely new to the business.
Rethinking strategy from the bottom up
Traditionally, strategy-making has always been a top-down, forecast-laden exercise, after which the goal is to get the strategic ideas of the company’s leaders into the heads of the people so that they can run off and obediently implement them.
Electrolux Professional took the opposite approach.
By involving the whole company in a highly inclusive and democratised process of strategy innovation, the leadership team was able to quickly generate a companywide perspective on truly unconventional strategic options for addressing the crisis. Over the designated one-week period, a wide variety of ideas bubbled up from every part of the organisation, coming from the minds and the hearts of the people, and built on their passion and their insights.
In this emergent, bottom-up approach to strategy-making, the company’s leadership team became less the authors of strategy and more the editors of strategy. Their role switched from generating the company’s new thinking to ‘connecting the dots’— carefully evaluating a portfolio of possible options and searching for the opportunities that would be the most promising strategic directions for the company’s short-term innovation efforts.
If we unpack all the options and ideas that were submitted during that one-week period, we can see that the fundamental principles of innovation were clearly at play. Just as I have argued for over two decades, big breakthroughs always come from looking at things from four particular perspectives, or innovation ‘lenses’.
The first of these lenses is focused on trends.
Rapidly adapting to change
How quickly can a company adapt to a major shift in market trends?
One of the megatrends over the last decade has undoubtedly been the pursuit of sustainable, environmentally-friendly solutions. Up until COVID-19, much of Electrolux Professional’s innovation strategy was centered around reducing the consumption of water, detergent and energy in its professional appliances – such as washing machines and dishwashers. The company’s five-year strategic planning, along with its budgeting and bi-annual controlling, firmly reflected this.
But then the world changed.
In Spring 2020, almost overnight, Electrolux Professional realised that by far the most acute and important trend for its business – and for its customers – was hygiene in addition to sustainability. Whether in food, beverages, or laundry, the central issue for all the company’s markets suddenly became how to quickly and effectively sanitize or disinfect.
Restaurants were forced to close for regular business but could deliver their food to people’s homes. So, understandably, home food delivery services boomed. But how could customers be sure the restaurant’s kitchens and the boxes used for delivery were hygienic enough to avoid virus infection?
Hospital services went into overdrive to cope with the exponential rise in patients testing positive for Coronavirus, many of whom required treatment. That, in turn, put massively increased demand on hospitals’ laundry facilities to quickly and effectively clean the washable PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) of their doctors and nurses. Many healthcare workers were also forced to make multiple use of single-use PPE such as masks and head coverings, due to shortage of these items.
The trend toward increased hygiene extended into other markets, too, where things had previously been much more relaxed. Fashion retail is one example. It suddenly became apparent that even if stores could eventually re-open, their fitting rooms would be a huge hygiene risk as multiple customers tried on the same garments right after each other. Some countries passed new retail legislation reflecting this concern.
Based on these trends, Electrolux Professional made a radical strategic pivot towards hygiene in addition to the sustainability. The urgent new questions for the company’s innovation strategy became:
How do we create customer solutions that put virus-related health and safety concerns first?
How can we redeploy our existing products not just to wash but also to sanitize or disinfect?
What can we do to make professional kitchens and laundry services safer and more hygienic for everyone?
Should we consider new solutions for other markets, too?
This was the thinking that drove many of the new ideas that were put forward by the company’s people.
Addressing urgent customer needs
Another key lens of innovation is the perspective of the customer. New trends can – and often do – create new needs. Sometimes urgent ones. Companies need to be constantly asking themselves where customers’ emerging ‘pain points’ and frustrations are. And then come up with innovative ways to solve them.
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread wildly and governments everywhere reacted with lockdown measures, what was the impact on Electrolux Professional’s customers? These were restaurants, hotels, bars and cafes, facilities for education, leisure and sports, hospitals, elderly care homes, commercial and self-service laundries, as well as other business and industries. Suddenly, for all these sectors and countless others too, stringent hygiene became the paramount concern for the future of their organisations. At the same time, many of the company’s customers found their financial resources rapidly drying up.
The people at Electrolux Professional knew they had to respond fast. And they did, rising to the challenge of addressing these urgent new needs with radically innovative solutions. From all corners of the company came fresh ideas aimed at providing hygienic safety and psychological reassurance in this time of fear and uncertainty. Ideas for products and services that could play a role in easing the deep anxieties and very real problems being experienced across businesses and societies – not just temporarily but as permanent, long-term solutions for the altered needs of an emerging, post-pandemic world.
Some of these ideas were for high-risk hotspots like hospitals and care homes for the elderly, where sanitization and the tracking of wash batches had become critical. Others were for apartment blocks and local launderettes where people share communal washing machines. Still others were for professional kitchens, where the focus was now on disinfecting preparation utensils for food and beverage hygiene. Further opportunities encompassed new markets such as food delivery and fashion retail. Or new business models that would make financing easier for cash-strapped customers. They all reflected the passion for customers that is keenly felt across Electrolux Professional’s entire corporate culture.
To sum up the attitude behind this customer-focused lens of innovation – and by this slew of new ideas from the company – I’m always reminded of a brilliant advertisement that was run by IBM in 2008, the year of the Great Recession. The headline was the following statement: ‘STOP selling what you HAVE. START selling what they NEED.’ I can’t think of a better customer-centric message for companies at any time, but especially at a time of crisis.
Challenging traditional assumptions
If an organisation is going to avoid strategic rigidity and embrace resilience, it must always be ready to question and even discard some of its fundamental beliefs and assumptions about its current strategy or business model. This is a third key perspective or ‘lens’ for any company that wants to achieve reinvention and renewal.
Innovators tend to be contrarians. They are not wedded to anything. They are the rebels who always ask, ‘What if?’ and ‘Why not?’ This was the blue-sky spirit that was unleashed when Electrolux Professional asked its people everywhere to come up with innovative new ideas.
Why can’t a washing machine become a sanitization machine? And, similarly, why can’t a dishwasher disinfect while it cleans dishes and kitchen utensils? How would we need to alter our current products to achieve this? Would it require a specific wash cycle? A higher temperature? A different kind of detergent? And if we could make this work, could we get the process validated and certified by an external bacteriological laboratory? What if we could very quickly start offering our customers not just industrial expertise but also hygiene and safety expertise? What if we could even make it possible for hospitals and care homes to turn scarce, single-use PPE products into sanitized, multiple-use items? These were just some of the questions the company began to ask itself.
Other people stretched their new thinking along different lines. They asked, What if customers can’t afford to buy our products at the moment because their own businesses are in financial trouble? Why can’t we offer them renting or leasing options? What if we explored new business models that turn our products into services, like pay-per-wash or pay-per-use? And what if we added consulting services to our offering to help our customers select the right solutions for their needs?
Then there were people who considered completely new markets. Some wondered if they could turn threat into opportunity by coming up with products for non-traditional businesses like fashion retail and food delivery. What if we could provide a solution for apparel stores that would swiftly sanitize garments right after customers have tried them on in the fitting rooms? And what if we could come up with a new kind of insulated food delivery box for restaurants and fast-food chains that would keep meals and beverages in a safe, hygienic container during transit to the home? In other words, why limit ourselves to our legacy businesses when there are new markets out there that also need our solutions?
One of the underlying assumptions inside most manufacturing companies is that new product development and commercialization takes a long time. However, the R&D and manufacturing experts at Electrolux Professional got together and asked each other, What would it take to rapidly fast-track some of these opportunities so that we can dramatically reduce the time it takes to move ideas from the mind to the market? How fast can we deliver these solutions to our customers?
Leveraging resources in new ways
Completing the set of four innovation lenses, or perspectives, is the ability to look across an organisation – as well as beyond its boundaries – and identify resources that could be repurposed, redeployed or recombined to create new opportunities.
Obviously, the first resource Electrolux Professional tapped into was the brainpower of its own people, with spectacular results. But the ideas generated in the company’s widely distributed ideation effort would have gone nowhere without leveraging skills and assets from every single part of the organisation. The firm’s marketing and sales people, for example, focused on tracking external trends and customer needs. The R&D people and their research labs began to delve deeply into the field of sanitization. The supply chain and manufacturing people sought creative ways to obtain necessary components despite the crisis – one was to simply hire a truck and drive from Sweden to Poland to personally pick them up! The finance people temporarily redirected R&D funds from the firm’s previous strategic plans and allocated them instead to developing the new ideas.
Being related to the larger Electrolux Group had advantages, too. There was a lot of know-how available across the organisation, including the Electrolux Global Connectivity & Technology Center (GC&T). Then there were possible external resources to consider – partner firms in the detergent business, research institutes and independent science labs, among others. One interesting company was Getinge, which had been spun out of Electrolux and is today a global leader in infection control and the sterilization of medical equipment. The R&D team at Electrolux Professional was able to compare notes with their counterparts at Getinge in the search for new answers.
Making innovation happen involved many existing resources that were cleverly combined. An older white paper laying out the parameters for disinfecting from Corona-type viruses. One of the company’s own detergents that happened to have the right pH value to be converted for use in sanitization. Appliance cabinets in Electrolux Professional’s product portfolio that could be redeployed for new solutions. The RISE institute in Sweden that could provide vital research and validation of the company’s new sanitizing solutions. UL, a worldwide independent lab that could certify Electrolux Professional’s dishwashing range from sanitization to disinfection level using relevant DIN standards. All of this added up to a set of exciting innovation opportunities that could very quickly become realized.
Leading innovation from the top
It’s one thing to generate ideas from everyone, everywhere in a bottom-up, democratized approach to strategy innovation. But actually driving ideas forward is always going to require the full and active commitment of a company’s top leaders.
This was certainly the case with Electrolux Professional. After collating all the ideas that were submitted during ideation – 162 ideas generated in only 8 days – the executive management team sat down to categorize and evaluate them. They were first sorted into two major categories based on their implementation timeline – short-term (2-6 months) and longer-term (6+ months). Around 70% of the ideas fell into the first category. Then, they were segregated into four sub-categories in terms of the nature of the ideas:
new products and solutions
new ways of working or selling
new ways to reduce spending
other kinds of ideas
When evaluating the potential of all the ideas, leaders were looking for three criteria: short-term realization, minimum investment, and maximum value creation for the customer in terms of solving today’s most urgent problems.
Based on these factors, ten ideas were shortlisted from the original portfolio of 162 ideas, and from these a final selection of four ideas was prioritized for immediate development. These were:
A washer and dryer for medical-grade sanitization of PPE (including single-use) in hospitals, clinics and elderly care homes
A dishwasher for professional kitchens with a similarly certified disinfection cycle for food and beverage utensils
A new solution for fashion retail – called a ‘Serenity Cabinet’ – for sanitizing garments with steam after they have been tried on
A ‘Safe-Box’ for insulated food delivery that keeps food and beverages in a sanitized environment while in transit
The rest of the idea portfolio is being mined by Electrolux Professional’s Innovation hub as a source of mid-term to longer-term innovation opportunities. Some of these include the service-based business models referred to earlier.
Once the four ideas above were approved for development, individual leaders from executive management were assigned as sponsors to realize each one of them, working with small multifunctional teams to drive them forward. As a result, the first three ideas were launched into the market within just two months. The fourth idea – ‘Safe-Box’ – is currently in a mature state of development and is heading for imminent launch.
Amazingly, all this was achieved in record time even though many people across the company were working remotely or had limited access to the organisation’s labs and manufacturing facilities. Regular progress reports on all four projects were presented by the designated leaders in the company’s top management meetings, which were also held virtually. Everything humanly possible was done to catalyze and streamline the development process so that time to market was reduced to almost nothing.
From continuous improvement to continuous renewal
One thing is for sure: our world is becoming more turbulent by the day. Correspondingly, the need for strategic resilience – the capacity to adapt our business models and strategies dynamically as circumstances change – will only become greater in the future.
We can learn a lot from Electrolux Professional’s example as outlined above. But the real challenge for every company today is not just how to act during a global crisis but how to make strategic renewal a part of the everyday fabric of the organisation. We need to institutionalise this mindset and behaviour so that it becomes part of the company’s DNA.
In short, we need to shift our corporate focus from continuous improvement to continuous renewal.
The 4 Lenses of Innovation can help us do just that. As we have seen, these lenses or perspectives are fundamental to rethinking and reinventing strategy in turbulent times. The first two lenses we examined – harnessing trends and understanding needs – are about acute awareness, paying very close and constant attention to what is changing in the external environment. The other two lenses – challenging orthodoxies and leveraging resources – are more about adaptability, giving us the capacity to continuously respond to external change by thinking and acting differently as an organisation.
None of this can be expected to work on a continuous basis without embedding innovation and strategic renewal as an ‘all-the-time, everywhere’ capability inside the company.
This calls for visionary leadership, like that of Alberto Zanata, CEO of Electrolux Professional, and his entire executive team, who actively encourage and support strategy innovation across their organisation, firmly believing it to be the backbone of the company’s continued success.
It calls for flexible management structures that can free up talented people to do whatever it takes to make innovation happen, especially when there is an urgent need to turn threats into opportunities.
It calls for a joint effort. A common culture of engagement and inclusion where ideas are welcome from everyone, everywhere. A culture where passion for the customer and a prevailing can-do spirit are the prime drivers. A culture where people truly believe they can overcome great challenges and solve big, important problems if they work creatively and tirelessly together as a team.
Towards Innovation Excellence
What about your own organisation? When the world went into crisis-mode in March 2020, you were no doubt also forced to reexamine your strategic plans and perhaps radically reprioritize your project portfolio.
What became abundantly clear, to quote Swapnil Choudhari, Director of global R&D for laundry systems at Electrolux Professional, was that “rigidity fails, while resilience prevails”. Of course, it’s fine and entirely necessary to make mid- to long-term corporate plans, but they must never be too rigid to allow for short-term, emergent ideas and perhaps abrupt shifts in strategy as circumstances change.
To make chefs and pastry chefs’ job easier, Les vergers Boiron launches Allo Chef Les vergers Boiron, an online technical support service.
After publishing the new tables of use for frozen fruit purées, Les vergers Boiron has broadened its range of services with an online technical support for chefs. Now that restaurants are reopening in many countries, this new service, which is being launched starting today on Les vergers Boiron website, will help food and beverage professionals by making their daily lives easier and guiding them through their creativity.
Available in English, French, Spanish and German, Allo Chef Les vergers Boiron allows chefs and pastry chefs, in Europe, to benefit from expert guidance on using Les vergers Boiron fruit solutions. The consulting chefs behind this tool offer their expertise like they usually do during technical courses or demonstrations.
If they have any questions about creating/making a recipe with Les vergers Boiron products, chefs or pastry chefs may use the online service Allo Chef Les vergers Boiron to seek advice from renowned professionals. Then they will be contacted by phone within 48h of the request and guided in a personalized manner through the recipes. This will make their job easier on a daily basis, by being provided with personalized technical support and fast and reliable solutions!
This service is offered unconditionally by Les vergers Boiron until the end of September. Chefs may submit their requests online either from Les vergers Boiron website www.my-vb.com or on the dedicated page.
F. DICK is starting the new barbecue season safely and in style this year. A leather apron and matching leather roll bag perfectly complement F. Dick’s high-quality barbecue tool range and can be used stylishly and safely by all barbecue enthusiasts.
The two products are made of supple 100% buffalo leather, naturally tanned, with a vintage look, while the colour-contrasting logo appliqués add a touch of refinement. Handmade in the Netherlands.
The apron adapts perfectly to the body thanks to the flexibility of the high-quality leather. The adjustable solid leather straps with a buckle fastener at the neck and hip make it comfortable to wear. At 82 cm (32”) in length, it provides reliable protection, especially at a hot barbecue. With a practical hanging loop, a tea towel and other tools, such as barbecue tongs, are always close at hand.
The apron measures 82 x 60 cm (32” x 23.5”).
The leather roll bag, which matches the leather apron, has 5 pockets that can be individually equipped. Here too, the supple leather impresses with its vintage look. Knives and tools can be transported safely and stylishly thanks to the adjustable solid leather strap with a buckle fastener.
The roll bag measures 45 x 47 cm (17.5” x 18.5”).
Friedr. Dick is the only manufacturer worldwide who offers a complete range of knives, sharpening steels, ancillary items for chefs and butchers as well as grinding machines, sharpening machines and knife cleaning devices. The long-standing tradition and experience of manufacturing products for chefs and butchers allow a continuous development of innovative products. Input from customers, especially end-users and our own ideas are converted into high-quality products.
Keep honing your skills! This summer, Worldchefs has teamed up with The French Chef Handbook – the most complete book of technical bases in the kitchen with more than 500 techniques described step-by-step, 3000 photos, 118 videos, and 1000 recipes worksheets.
Written by the visionary Chef Michel Maincent-Morel, this book revolutionized the learning of cooking by offering solid techniques to beginners.
First published in 1995, La Cuisine de Référence has trained over 800,000 chefs in French cooking techniques. Translated into English for the 25th anniversary, it’s now available to the Worldchefs community in digital format FREE for a limited time only.
Get immersed online, the next best thing to a stage in a kitchen!
Worldchefs Summer Camp with the French Chef Handbook is available for free until August 31, 2020. Don’t miss out!
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