The Spanish company that is the leading manufacturer of products for Horeca professionals teams up with Spain’s first Faculty of Gastronomic Sciences, offering its experience and expertise to develop innovative joint projects in this field.
On the occasion of the San Sebastián Gastronomika Congress, Raúl Purroy, Business Development Manager at Araven and Joxe Mari Aizega, Managing Director of the Basque Culinary Center, signed a new agreement to continue and extend the common lines of work laid down in the initial agreement signed in 2014.
A new joint area of work has been added in this agreement: the LABe-Digital Gastronomy Lab, a living lab of open innovation to address the subject of digital transformation in gastronomy. Araven will continue to take part in the training programmes organised by the Basque Culinary Center and will offer assessment on food preservation and handling.
(Thursday, 10th October 2019) The Spanish company Araven is the market leader in food preservation and handling products for culinary professionals. The Basque Culinary Center, headquartered in San Sebastián (North Spain), is a pioneering academic institution at world level, dedicated to higher education and research into gastronomy. These two benchmark names join forces and pool their experience with the renewal of their cooperation agreement to develop joint training and research projects.
The partnership between Araven and the Basque Culinary Center started in 2014 with a five-year agreement that has achieved excellent results. As the term of the initial agreement ends the two parties have decided to sign a new alliance lasting through to 2024, to continue along the same lines and to add a new undertaking that will involve developing joint projects in the LABe-Digital Gastronomy Lab, the new living lab of open innovation in the field of gastronomy.
The new agreement was signed on the occasion of the San Sebastián Gastronomika Show by Raúl Purroy, Business Development Manager at Araven, and Joxe Mari Aizega, Managing Director of the Basque Culinary Center.
Raúl Purroy highlighted that the aim of this agreement is “to create synergies between our two fields of work: food safety in Araven’s case and gastronomy in the case of the Basque Culinary Center”. The idea is to assist and offer support to future Horeca professionals, by sharing Araven’s expertise acquired over the course of its extensive experience on the market, as well as to promote research and the transfer of know-how among haute cuisine professionals “each bringing added value in the areas in which we can develop a common project”
LABE-DIGITAL GASTRONOMY LAB, MAIN INNOVATION
Among the activities envisaged in this second agreement, one of the main novelties is a new line of work focused around the open-innovation LABe-Digital Gastronomy Lab run by the Basque Culinary Center and inaugurated last July at the Donostia-San Sebastián Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture. Araven has taken part at the centre in the development of innovative solutions that adapt to the new technological and digital modalities in the Horeca industry.
Likewise the company plans to undertake projects in cooperation with the Technology Centre specialised in gastronomy, run by the Basque Culinary Center (BCC Innovation). BCC Innovation will be carrying out tests and trials of Araven’s new products before they are launched on the market.
The agreement also includes assessment by Araven and the fitting out of the centre’s food preservation and storage areas, guaranteeing that the centre is equipped with the best products for preserving and handling food so that the future Horeca professionals have the best tools available for their daily work.
Lastly, Araven will continue to take part in the Basque Culinary Centre’s training programmes. Firstly, in the Degree in Gastronomy and Culinary Arts; in courses for professionals such as the Master’s degree in Restaurant Innovation and Management; and also in the activities for gastronomy enthusiasts, such as the culinary club course “Become a professional chef”.
FIVE-YEAR MILESTONE
Araven’s Business Development Manager highlighted that this partnership brings with it great benefits for both parties, helping Araven to develop new products and allowing chefs at the Basque Culinary Center to benefit from better training for their work and culinary creations, as demonstrated by the results obtained during the first five years of cooperation.
The agreement signed in 2014 kicked off with a study of the different areas at the Basque Culinary Center dedicated to food preservation and handling: cold stores and freezers, dry storage areas and food processing stations. The project came up with specific solutions for each type of food and for equipping each space in the most suitable way, taking into account its characteristics. Araven became BCC’s exclusive supplier of equipment for its different work areas.
What this has also meant is that students, in their practical classes at the Basque Culinary Center, have Araven’s professional tools at hand, tools that are specifically designed to meet the needs of professionals in terms of cost savings, optimisation of tasks, control of dates etc. Furthermore, for degree and master’s students, the firm has organised training activities on implementing good health and hygiene practices in Horeca establishments. The company’s work in this area also includes tutoring the degree dissertations that students have to present. The conclusions reached as a result of all of this work have been integrated into product innovation processes.
Araven has also sponsored past editions of the Diálogos de Cocina Congress and the meeting of the International Council of the Basque Culinary Center, which is the framework for deliberating on and notifying the winner of the Basque Culinary World Prize, an international award that acknowledges the work of chefs with transforming initiatives in areas such as innovation, technology, education, environment, health, the food industry or social and economic development, among others. The Basque Culinary Center International Council meeting was held in Modena in 2018 and the venue for this year is San Francisco.
ARAVEN: INNOVATION AND INTERNATIONALISATION
Founded in 1976, Araven has more than 40 years’ experience in the market. With its headquarters in Villanueva de Gállego (Zaragoza) and branches in the US and Mexico, it is currently present in more than 70 countries and in the kitchens of the most renowned professionals.
In 1990 Araven brought out its specific range of products for Horeca professionals: Araven airtight containers. Currently the product division for the Horeca sector offers more than 500 product references under the name of Araven Food Safety Innovation, for food preservation, handling and service.
To meet the most demanding professional needs, the company works in close collaboration with the best chefs and training centres and it has its own design department. This way its exclusive products are on a par with the quality of the raw materials and dishes and meet requirements in terms of work efficiency, identification and control or costs.
Araven is also present at the main retail outlet chains with its range of retail equipment. The company launched its first shopping basket in 1987 and secured market leadership with the Shop&Roll line that started off in 2005 with the presentation of the first shopping basket with a telescopic handle and wheels, patented and sold worldwide. From 2014 it has surprised the sector again with its innovative compact Loop 100L and 160 L shopping carts.
BASQUE CULINARY CENTER: AT THE FOREFRONT OF GASTRONOMY
The Basque Culinary Center forms a unique ecosystem where training, innovation, research and entrepreneurship coexist for the purpose of developing and furthering gastronomy, understood as the reasoned knowledge of what we eat and how we prepare it.
Located in San Sebastián since 2011, the Basque Culinary Center is a pioneering institution comprising the Faculty of Gastronomic Sciences with students from 32 countries and an academic offer that includes a Degree in Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, 8 Master’s degrees and specialisation courses, and the so-called BCC Innovation, a technology centre for gastronomy and interdisciplinary research that investigates and innovates in the design of products and services, while at the same time providing support for firms and new entrepreneurs and offering a wide variety of programmes, initiatives and events.
