REBER: a new creativity in the kitchen

2068

The market of food dryers begins to catch on also in Italy. Maurizio Re, sales manager of Reber, explains its development and describes the products on the market.

By Maria Eva Virga

Maurizio Re, sales manager of Reber
Maurizio Re, sales manager of Reber

Reber, company with executive headquarters in the province of Mantua, was born in 1964 as a firm of mechanical processing for third parties. After a few years, it begins the production of small household items, mincers, presses for pasta, tomato juicers. In 1975 it starts the production of electric tomato squeezers, to which meat mincers and graters are added soon. It is, instead, in the 80’s that it begins the manufacturing of machines for food vacuum packaging. Reber also produces food dryers for both domestic and professional use: products that are very widespread abroad and that begin to make their way in the Italian market too. Maurizio Re, sales manager of Reber explains it to Household Appliances World.

03-Artus ambientata

What is the food dryers market trend in Italy?
It is a market that has been developing in Italy for a very short time (two/three years), and especially with customers careful to the consumption of healthy and natural products, that relies very much to the do-it-yourself in the kitchen. As many products of Reber’s range, such as those for storage or vacuum cooking, items for conserves (tomato or jam), for sausages or for mincing the meat.

Since when has it caught on?  And do the trends see a greater development of the professional or the domestic area?
From the available data we have the market has more than doubled between 2013 and 2014, and growth is going on in 2015 too. As usual, our Reber range is widening: from the only model in plastic for domestic use, to more professional models, made with steel, designed for the most demanding users, but also for the activities of small/medium size restaurants that consider rewarding to offer self-made food to their customers, but that so far were discouraged by too expensive industrial products.

As regards Reber, is there a growth in place?  Of what percentage?
In the first quarter of 2015 Reber recorded an increase of 200% of plastic products for domestic use, and this comforted us in the decision to realize a made ​​in Italy steel product, that we have recently started to propose to the market, and on which we have excellent expectations, especially for entering a professional or semi-professional market, that until now, was not covered yet.

Who is the typical consumer who buys a food dryer?
That who uses the dryer is a consumer careful to food quality, fond of cooking and of conserves preparation, maybe using products from his/her own garden. The proliferation in recent years of television programs, Internet sites and publications about food and natural products have increased very much the sensibility of the consumer about the themes of quality, genuineness and health linked to the diet and these concepts are perfectly correspondent to the Rebers’s production.

In what types of stores are food dryers sold more?
Reber has a very variegated distribution (household appliances shops, ironmongery, horeca channels, do-it-yourself and household stores) and its presence in so many different sales channels has probably facilitated the distribution of a so particular product, that is suitable, however, to be present in different kind of channels, as distribution is trying nowadays to expand more and more its offer, and many are looking for something new to present in the stores.

What advantages does the food drying offer, both at domestic and at professional level?
Drying fruits or vegetables, at home too, contributes to preserve the nutritional value and the flavors of food and to preserve them for a longer time. Not only: it allows to buy fruits and vegetables in their own season when their price is cheaper, to preserve the garden products and create original recipes and small gourmandises for children. From Northern Europe the habit of using dried products (fruits and vegetables, but also meat or fish) is also spreading in Italy for aperitifs / appetizers / snacks, with the advantage that the do-it-yourself allows to improvise, invent and be original, without conforming to the standards of industrial producers. For a new creativity in the kitchen.

THE OPINION OF THE RETAILER
Danny Manzini, SDA purchasing manager for Comet group
Danny Manzini, SDA purchasing manager for Comet group

Danny Manzini, SDA purchasing manager for Comet group: «We sell quite well the white model of dryer, made in plastic, to the domestic public, although there is no culture of the dryer in Italy. For example: many use it for mushrooms in the Autumn, but they don’t know that you can dehydrate seasonal fruit and vegetables for a long time. Obviously, the amount to dry is limited, but the results are immediate. It can also be used to create aromas, for example from the leaves of celery. It would be very important, in agreement with the company, to propose product demonstrations, as we are trying to do with vacuum machines. On our leaflets we are trying to make people understand what it can be achieved through this product and we got some good feedback.»
The dryer Artus D03 model distributed by Reber, for domestic use, is equipped with a modular system with 5 compartments of great capacity, with transparent walls for the immediate and continuous control of the drying process.
The dryer Artus D03 model distributed by Reber, for domestic use, is equipped with a modular system with 5 compartments of great capacity, with transparent walls for the immediate and continuous control of the drying process.
DRYING FOOD
The dryer works thanks to a simple process: the heated air is pushed by the fan - located on the base of the product - and conveyed upward from the inside of the base through the loopholes of the trays for a greater homogeneity of work. The air absorbs the humidity of the food.
Thanks to the digital timer it is possible to check the remaining time working. The machine stops automatically at the end of the programmed time.
Dehydrated foods have a longer preservation time because one of the factors contributing to the deterioration of fresh product is removed: moisture.

Dried foods can be stored:
• In airtight glass or food plastic jars
• In vacuum can
• Inside vacuum bags

The last two methods are ideal because they combine the absence of moisture to the absence of air preventing the food oxidation, and the development of bacteria.