Merenberg Get a pizza in three minutes at the touch of a button: Volker Beck sells pizza machines to large catering providers who want to automate the catering industry. The entrepreneur also wants to do something about the shortage of skilled workers.
The Roka factory in southern Hesse produces the first pizza machines for the French manufacturer Apitech. They cost 65,000 euros and go to Airbus and the Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide, among others. Many restaurants lack staff, so Beck doesn’t take away any pizza bakers’ job opportunities with the machines, he says: “I don’t rationalize anyone away.”
Hundreds of thousands of missing employees are now making themselves felt, agrees the gastro expert and trend observer Michael Haas. And that with a weak economy: “Once the boom comes, we’ll have a real problem,” says Haas. This increases the automation of gastronomy.
The expert also believes that Beck’s strategy fits the times: “Many customers want to interact with the outside world as little as possible,” says Haas. “Communication is changing with digitization,” he says, citing hotlines and the dating behavior of young people as examples, who would only meet in person after several stages. Haas predicts that a third of cheaper food options such as pizza or ice cream could be provided by vending machines in ten years.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
In 2023, Beck wants to sell ten pizza machines per month to operators of company canteens and canteens. He also developed the prototype of an unmanned supermarket for the Schwarz Foundation, which is behind the supermarket chains Lidl and Kaufland. In a container, robots will put together the products that customers have previously ordered via the app and are ready for collection. This is “a good solution for a university campus or for structurally weak regions,” says Beck.
Roka: roller boxes, food trucks and robots from Hesse
Roka is still mainly active in the classic business with mobile food trucks. Food trucks, trailers, food containers: Beck sells 150 of these per year. The shortage of skilled workers is also noticeable here, says the company boss: “We could make at least 20 percent more sales if our customers had enough staff.”
When visiting the company in Merenberg, Hesse, Beck points to a matt black food truck that is parked in front of the factory building. This has already been bought by the TV chef Stefan Henssler, but has been on the premises for months – because he has not yet found any staff for his sushi brand.
The name Roka stands for roller shutter boxes, massive roller shutters for the windows of residential buildings, which Beck’s father manufactured from 1962. Sixty years later, the product still belongs to a family-owned division of Beck Holding.
But today the range is much broader. Among other things, Roka is the only provider to hold the sales license for new vehicles from the US company Air Stream with their typical silver caravans. The company makes about half of its sales with mobile gastro systems with catering providers such as Sodexo. SAP, Ikea and the Munich trade fair also buy food trucks or converted containers from Roka.
For his food trucks, containers and trailers, Volker Beck has 40 employees produce the blanks in his plant in Hungary, and he has 85 employees in Germany. His forwarding agent commutes between the locations six times a month. In Merenberg, the vehicles, trailers and containers are manufactured in a 6000 square meter hall. “The largest takeaway production in Europe,” says Beck proudly. He walks around the hall, greets employees by their first names, and asks questions about the production process.
He has long been represented with his brand at major events such as the Berlin Fan Mile and Christopher Street Day in Cologne and Berlin or festivals such as Rock am Ring. In the middle of the heat wave, the entrepreneur is already thinking about next summer: “Whenever there are gaps in production, my employees should make an ice cream truck”. In February he wants to have ten finished cars ready for the next season.
Beck produces the vehicles in Hesse and offers an “after-sale service”, which is particularly important for large caterers. His helpdesk can be reached around the clock, and two service vehicles can drive to customers in an emergency.
Roka sees itself as the undisputed market leader for mobile gastronomy in Europe. Beck is planning sales of 20 million euros for this year and more than 15 percent profit before taxes. According to gastro expert Michael Haas, Roka has “found a clever niche that others will probably smile at”.
“Outdoor is sexy” – also for companies
Customers have to spend 80,000 to 125,000 euros for the Roka vehicles. This is usually not for amateur cooks who serve their own burgers at the garden party, says Volker Beck. Roka now also has a used vehicle segment, which accounts for 20 percent of sales.
His customers tend to be large companies, some of which want to modernize canteens in Germany. For example, SAP has “a large food hall” from him with various food containers and seating on the roof ordered. Part of the production is currently focused on a major project for the Five Guys burger chain. A large shop for the US military airport in Rammstein is being built from eight 40-foot containers.
Michael Haas believes that many companies will say goodbye to the classic canteen. Because with many jobs, employers have to convince their workforce to come back to the office. “Food trucks that change on a daily basis, for example, could help here,” says Haas. The number of employees in the office fluctuates every day, mobile offers can compensate for this. Premium offers from food trucks would enhance the workplace.
In Germany, the movement is just beginning, compared to the USA. But even in this country, people are now sitting outside with a blanket in front of the cafés in winter: “Outdoor is sexy,” Haas is convinced.
More: Caterers in crisis: the canteens remain empty