Dusseldorf The small village of Heede is right on the German-Dutch border. In the village there is an apiary, a farm butcher and a small grocer. The head office of Kanne Investment Group AG is located about two and a half kilometers from the village centre, directly on the motorway.
There is little to suggest that the company from the tranquil town has just completed two restaurants in one of Germany’s trendiest locations. The company intends to open the “Alexander” bar in the Humboldt Forum in Berlin this Thursday, followed shortly afterwards by the “Wilhelm”.
The two restaurants in the capital are the current highlight of a company history in which the company has constantly reinvented itself – and in which company boss Hermann Kanne has responded to every challenge with a new entrepreneurial idea.
Kanne has been involved in pretty much every area that has to do with gastronomy. Several restaurants, a catering service, a recruitment agency, engineering offices and a hotel – when Hermann Kanne looks at his company, he himself, as a long-time managing director, has to think a little before he can name all of his company’s fields of activity.
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Over the past 30 years, the 61-year-old has built up a small gastronomy and service empire from his home in northern Germany. In the meantime, the medium-sized company has a turnover of around 25 million euros – if you include the franchisees, it is about twice as much.
New business model for hospital bistros
And if Hermann Kanne has his way, the empire should continue to grow. “We look at concepts from all over the world,” says Kanne. Zagreb, Istanbul, Berlin or Dubai: the medium-sized company from Emsland regularly travels the world in search of the next gastronomic trend.
It all started in 1988, when real estate agent Kanne took over a building contractor’s ailing hotel in his hometown of Heede. About two years later he was asked to take over the cafeteria of a hospital in neighboring Papenburg. “From an entrepreneurial point of view, that wasn’t particularly exciting,” says Kanne in retrospect. Out of solidarity with the region, he takes on the project anyway.
An initial spark. After taking over three more hospital bistros, the first major project in Gelsenkirchen followed. “That’s when we noticed: It’s a lucrative business for more than 500 beds,” reports Kanne.
Kanne fills a gap in the market. Hospital cafés with high standards were not very common at that time. High-quality ambience and fresh food – with its unconventional concept, Kanne sets itself apart from the otherwise rather sterile appearing bistros.
Because hospitals without an existing bistro also want to benefit from the Kanne business model, they asked Kanne if he could add an entire bistro to the hospital. “So I hired architects and had hospital bistros designed,” reports Kanne. “Over time, we’ve built up more and more mainstays,” says Kanne.
In the Corona crisis, business collapses
The Emsland company even founded its own coffee roasting plant. “Every gastronomy concept needs coffee, and that’s where we start in our value chain,” says Henrik Kanne. He is the eldest son of boss Hermann and has been in the family business for seven years. He inherited his father’s entrepreneurial genes. Already at the age of 27 he was in the operative management of the company, leading one of the family’s latest projects: a grand hotel on the North Sea island of Juist. “It’s been a great success so far,” states Kanne Sr.
For many years, the hospital bistros business was highly profitable. Kanne and his approximately 350 employees have developed and implemented catering concepts for over 70 customers. Four years ago, the company entered into a partnership with the Compass Group. With more than 500,000 employees, the English company is the largest catering provider in the world and operates most of the bistros developed by Kanne.
But then Corona came. “That was the worst case scenario for us,” says Hermann Kanne. Within a few days, the group lost a large part of its operational business. Hoping that the pandemic will pass quickly is out of the question for the entrepreneurial family. In the middle of the pandemic, the group of companies is investing heavily in the luxury hotel on Juist.
>> Read here: These graphics show all the drama of gastronomy
During the crisis, the team also set up two of its own engineering offices, which are primarily active in the energy sector. Above all, Kanne wants to make large buildings more energy-efficient, for example hospitals or sports halls. “Our order books are well filled into next year,” says Kanne. The engineering team is to be doubled this year. In the long term, the energy sector should be at least as big as the catering business.
Nursing school set up in Ukraine
During the pandemic, the Kanne Investment Group also set up its own service pool for specialists. The company recruits people from third countries who are willing to work in order to train them on site and then place them in Germany. In addition to locations in the Philippines and Mexico, Kanne has also set up a nursing school in the Ukraine. “For us, but especially for our people on site, the current situation is a nightmare,” says Kanne.
Many of the trainees fled to Germany and are now accommodated in the premises of the Kanne Group. In view of the large influx of refugees from the Ukraine, the Kanne Group could now use its infrastructure to train people directly in Germany. “That may be the case in the long term, but other things are important right now,” says Henrik Kanne.
With the departure from the former core business of hospital bistros, the company is now increasingly focusing on its own brands. One of them is the Italian restaurant concept Kanneloni. So far there is one near the company headquarters in Rheede, the other is in Vienna. With the “Charlie Drys” grill house chain, the Kanne Group wants to launch another concept on the market. “The restaurants are our flagship stores and serve as inspiration for further concepts,” says Kanne junior.
But people in Emsland are particularly proud of the two bars in Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, which are said to reflect the life concepts of the famous Humboldt brothers. The museum on the Spreeinsel in Berlin-Mitte has around three million visitors. “All the big players applied for it,” says Herrmann Kanne, not without pride. And for the Kanne Group it might be the next spark.
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