Cuisine & Wine Asia Interview with Owner of Marrone: Mr. Armando Pujatti
by Darinee Durai
@ 05 Jul 2017
Mr. Pujatti: First of all, we are not designers – we are manufacturers and so we follow design principles that are generally made by consultants. What we can bring to the kitchen consultants are our expertise and knowledge in terms of product construction. We are not judging consultants or operator type of designs but we are trying to bring the 3 major aspects related to our construction. It’s more of a core design aspect than a real one. With the clients that are consultants, chefs for fine-dining or for private house.
What are your design principles?
Mr. Pujatti: There are 3 different aspects on how we analyse a design. First of all: the comfort of the operator. We analyse how the cooking function is distributed in the drawing. We look at safety aspects – that is very important and the second aspect, terms of operations where the chefs need to work in an environment with minimized danger. Sometimes we can see there are designs that are not aligned with the safety aspects e.g. use of water close to a frying area. Going back to comfort, it is very important to understand the chef’s comfort. Sometimes, when we concentrate on the cooking functions, we forget water taps. The third aspect is related to the space and durability. That means we analyse the functions in a customised cooking unit. And in terms of durability – everything needs to work well for the long term: 15-20 years. For this reason we don’t want to have any compromises in our designs. Safety, durability and comfort and for these reasons, we suggest we co-design with kitchen designers and operators.
How do you test the durability of your equipment?
Mr. Pujatti: With over 40 years of experience, Marrone is one of the biggest if not the biggest manufacturer of tailored cooking blocks in the world. We regularly analyse feedbacks from the field and the improvements are always included in the next unit. Durability is our major-driver in terms of product as it is heavily linked to reliability. All our products are tested and certified to fit local requirements. We release a certificate that shows our compliances with the mandatory norms of each country. Nothing leaves the company without going through the proper tested phase. Sometimes, people assume that with high quality cooking equipment like what we produce has no need of maintenance. This is especially common in Asia and the Middle East, where regular maintenance contracts are not practiced like in Europe. Proper maintenance ensures the products are durable, safe and comfortable to use.
But in truth, these equipment need to be regularly cleaned. The owners of a cooking unit should not fail to call the maintenance. Marrone has 40 years of experience and we never compromise on our principles because we are not linked to large volume scale production. Durability is linked to reliability and reliability is the most important aspect for a chef.
We know how well our units can perform. We also know the good and bad habits of the operators: we understand the chefs are trying to speed up the cleaning process and with that, we need to anticipate possible technical problems. The actual durability of a product is linked to behaviour of the operators and good designs by the manufacturers.
