Relations with customers as lockdown is eased could not be more crucial. After weeks of closure, establishments everywhere are finding it hard to get back to their pre-pandemic rhythm, with customers still scared and reluctant to return, worried about performing gestures that used to be completely natural. Now companies are coming to the rescue, offering restaurateurs new solutions. The aim: to create a “new” space, one that will put customers at their ease.

“With the Ho.re.ca. sector completely shut down, we have been focusing on four things,” says Marco Rodi, branch manager of Bravilor Italia: coffee-to-go schemes, instant coffee machines suitably adapted to serve automated meals in care homes, the progress of projects and finally the development of a sanitising column developed entirely by us with the same steel used for coffee machines, and which is elegant, versatile and extremely easy and safe to use thanks to the dispenser pedal.”

The coffee-to-go schemes were set up in collaboration with a number of Italian coffee roasters who export to other countries: “in this case both traditional and automatic filter machines were used. We are well aware that Italy is the country of espresso coffee, but right now other consumer trends are emerging that are mainly to do with delivery services, and we will see if they continue once bars reopen.”

Despite the fact that nursing homes are now closed to outside visitors, activities have of course continued inside, with a new, heightened need to reduce the risk of contamination during the handling of food. “Thanks to our range of instant coffee machines it is possible to supply breakfast products automatically as well as foodstuffs of just the right consistency, with a wide range of items to choose from: milk and biscuits, tea and biscuits, various flavours of gel water, thickened drinks (hot), starters, main courses, side dishes, fruit mousses and deserts. It is an all-Italian project which we and our distributor are trying to export to other European markets.”

Bravilor also works in the research and development sector: after the summer it will be bringing out a model similar in size to a capsule machine but with its own incorporated coffee grinder, which will require just a click to dispense espresso coffee and can be connected to a refrigerator for cold milk. “It is difficult to say what coffee breaks in companies will be like now, but if social distancing continues, we will have to have smaller appliances, possibly spread over a wider area. In some countries we are getting a sense that working from home will become an advantage and that companies will start putting home coffee breaks into their welfare packages.”

Still on the subject of coffee, Kimbo has decided to give its support to Italian baristas through two initiatives: a series of special free gifts linked to the purchase of coffee beans, and an advertising campaign that aims to help people rediscover the moment of happiness experienced when drinking coffee at a bar.

“At this particularly difficult time, people have changed their behaviour and that includes going without some of those moments that give great pleasure, like enjoying a good cup of coffee at a bar,” the company says. “We are committed to offering the bar channel our concrete support and we as a firm are making every effort to help kick-start the return to business as usual.”