Workers co-operate
Any caterer who knows Spain will be aware of that country's increasingly vibrant restaurant and bar industry, with major cities spawning innovative concepts based on indigenous culinary traditions such as tapas, paella and bocadillos as well as international themes.
Spanish-made catering equipment has not yet gained comparable exposure but recent growth of the UK subsidiary of Fagor Industrial suggests that the country's equipment exports are becoming more significant.
With extensive manufacturing capabilities in commercial cooking, refrigeration, warewashing and laundry equipment, Fagor claims about 30 per cent of Spain's catering equipment market.
As well as making equipment under its own brand, it also produces badged products for various well-known international equipment companies such as warewashing equipment for Spain's Azkoyen and Italy's Gaggia.
The company is also notable in being part of Mondragon Corporation, an organisation widely considered to be the world's most successful workers' cooperative.
Geoff Snelgrove, who heads up Fagor Industrial UK reports that the business has changed dramatically in the past 18 months with business almost doubling. It currently employs 15 people and expects to turn over more than £4m this year. Snelgrove first became involved with Fagor as an importer in 1986 and has worked directly for the Spanish company since 1988. In 1999, Fagor Industrial UK was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish company.
A key factor in the company's growing UK presence is the scale of its manufacturing which enables it to cover a very wide spectrum of needs at competitive prices, from small kitchens to complete kitchen installations for large hotels and institutional users. Total range extends to over 3000 products.
"When we decide to make a product we look at the total market and try to cover all needs," Snelgrove comments. "Taking combi-steamers, many of the big international players only make models which generate steam by injection whereas others only make the more expensive versions with separate boilers." Fagor makes both types and in a wide range of control versions from electro-mechanical to fully programmable. "Basically, we try to make what people want rather than talk them into buying what happens to be in the manufacturing programme," Snelgrove says.
This point is also demonstrated in the field of warewashing equipment, where Fagor makes over 20,000 machines per year from small cabinet machines to complete conveyor systems, including gas heated as well as electric models. "Dishwashing involves heating up a lot of water so it is an excellent application for gas," he comments. "While it is more complicated on equipment like combi-steamers, the savings are well worth it on large scale warewashing. With costs at least four times cheaper than electricity, gas is very much the future for such products."
Snelgrove says that the Spanish factories are ready to develop equipment to suit UK needs, an example being a UK style cooker in the extensive 700 modular range series.
Some items might once have been seen as Iberian or Mediterranean in style but often find niche here, an example being the company's range of top-lidded dump-type bottle cooler.
These don't just suit Spanish conditions but also have practical benefits in UK bars, Snelgrove points out. "Glass display fridges do a good job of merchandising but functionally have to overwork to keep their contents cool because cold air constantly rushes out when the door is opened. So they are much less energy-efficient and stocking them involves a lot more bottle handling."
At the other end of scale, the Fagor brand is steadily becoming more visible in large kitchen schemes and the UK company is actively promoting its own AutoCad-based design software package, which carries complete designs and service requirements of all Fagor equipment.
Complete schemes have included combis, ranges and warewashing for Scotland's big Inchyra Grange Hotel, which cannot have overjoyed the nearby Falcon factory.
Fagor
A priest's blessing Fagor Industrial is notable among the world's leading catering equipment manufactures in being part of giant workers' cooperative Mondragon Corporation, the largest enterprise in the Basque region of Spain and one of Spain's 12 largest businesses. Independent reports have shown that the Mondragon cooperatives are twice as profitable as the average corporation in Spain with employee productivity surpassing any other Spanish organisation.
It started in Mondragon, northern Spain, in 1956 when a Basque priest, Jos‚ Maria Arizmediarrieta, encouraged five young engineers to open their own factory making cooking stoves. By 1982, the Mondragon Cooperative Movement had spawned 85 industrial cooperatives producing everything from machine tools to refrigerators and electronic equipment, among them Fagor Industrial. Mondragon also has its own bank (an important element in the group's success) schools and retailing outlets. Today's Mondragon Co-operative Corporation encompasses 120 co-operative enterprises, subsidiaries and support organisations with a workforce of 60,000, and sales of 8bn euros.
