Our couple feel a sense of anticipation on the way to the restaurant. This is an opportunity to enjoy good company, delicious food, and a break from the everyday routine. Expectations are high. In order to meet them, restaurateurs need not only a passion for food but also a perfect network of efficient suppliers. This is where the KION Group comes into play, as the numerous culinary specialties place different demands on effortless logistics. Our brand companies Linde Material Handling, STILL, and Dematic offer the right solutions to achieve this.
The start of a memorable evening: what can I get you?
Back to our couple: A welcoming table awaits in the dining area. But even before the first drinks and dishes are served, KION's brand companies have already made their first contribution. Take the flowers on the table, for example. To ensure that the arrangement arrives on the table in perfect condition, the logistics need to be sophisticated – as is the case at Dutch florist wholesaler Dillewijn Zwapack in Amstelveen. The ultra-modern warehouse there has been automated by KION's subsidiaries STILL and Dematic. Our couple might not give this a second thought, but it is the finer details that ensure that a visit to a restaurant is perfect. And the evening has only just begun.
The waiter brings the menus and takes the drinks order. He also brings a crusty baguette with a delicious dip to nibble on. To ensure that the bread is served as fresh as possible, several Linde Material Handling industrial trucks were used at Gusto AG in the Bavarian town of Hohenpolding. The specialist supplier of baking, pastry, and ice cream products uses trucks, order picking vehicles, and hand pallet trucks with advanced lithium-ion drives to load the raw materials for the bakeries in the early hours of the morning. This is how the flour reaches the baker in time and a fresh, crispy baguette arrives at the table.
The drinks: efficient logistics ensure full flavor
To go with the main course – more on this in a moment – one of our guests opts for a white wine and her companion orders a Pilsner beer. High-performance industrial trucks, mainly forklift trucks, that offer high reliability are particular important in beverage logistics. The Krombacher brewery in Siegerland, for example, relies on a large fleet of diesel and electric STILL trucks to load up to 32,000 pallets every day. The logistical challenges behind the riesling that the waiter has just served are quite different. When the grapes on the picturesque hills around Heilbronn are perfectly ripe, the winegrowers deliver hundreds of crates of grapes a day to the local cooperative winery for processing. To cover this peak demand, the winery leases trucks from Linde Material Handling as additional seasonal workers to ensure that the valuable grapes are processed as quickly as possible while retaining their quality. The result is a well-rounded wine that is perfect for toasting the evening.
The main course: complex cold chains deliver delicious food
As the evening is a celebration, he has opted for a juicy T-bone steak. Its quality is guaranteed by the Bigler Royal Rind program, in which the animals are kept under the best conditions on the verdant slopes of the Swiss Alps. But the quality of the meat also depends on how it has been stored, which is why Bigler AG relies on Dematic Multishuttle, an automated warehousing and sorting system. With a range of different temperature zones, it provides perfectly tempered storage and fast fulfillment, thus ensuring that the meat arrives at the restaurant in peak condition.
She has opted for a fish dish, made with cod from the blue Norwegian waters around the Lofoten archipelago. Numerous STILL electric forklift trucks are in operation in the remote fishing villages here, taking the 'gold of the Lofoten' from the boats and transporting it directly to the cold store. The fresh, high-quality fillet of fish served to our diner tastes delicious.
The dishes are seasoned with salt from the Dutch province of Friesland. The fine crystals are extracted at a depth of two kilometers under the Wadden Sea. Producer Frisia Zout has a whole fleet of electric forklift trucks from Linde Material Handling that help to get the salt to restaurants across Europe.
The dessert: automated ripening processes for pure indulgence
Our couple decide on a cheese board as the perfect ending to the meal. Their favorite is the bright yellow Ländle Safrankäse. The cheese, made with saffron and milk from hay-fed cows, carries the EU TSG (traditional speciality guaranteed) seal. To ensure optimum conditions for ripening, manufacturer Vorarlberg Milch uses driverless transport systems from Dematic to manage the process. At exactly the right time, they transport the cheeses stored in the natural cellar at Vorarlberg Milch, automatically to a machine that turns them and rubs them with saffron water, and move them to another temperature zone for the next ripening phase. The result is a smooth yet strong cheese with all the characteristics of an artisanal product.
There is just enough room left for a sweet dessert, and our couple opt for apple strudel. The apples for the strudel come from the Altes Land region in northern Germany. Here, producers such as Obsthof Raddatz near the town of Buxtehude use electric forklift trucks from STILL to load the harvest. The Elstar apples grown here are the perfect ingredient for the strudel. And why not have some vanilla ice cream to go with it? It is supplied by Gusto AG, the company that also makes the bread we mentioned earlier, and which uses trucks made by Linde Material Handling.
Gusto completes the circle for our couple as a lovely evening comes to an end. The KION brand companies, on the other hand, are still hard at work delivering fresh food and other goods, ensuring that diners enjoy exceptional culinary experiences at countless restaurants around the world.
