The future of the company canteen is sustainable, regional & digital.
The future of the company canteen is sustainable, regional and digital. In 2023 Primus Service GmbH, together with BlaueErdbeere, digitises three further canteens in Germany. Most recently, in September, that was the canteen of NEW Niederrhein Energie und Wasser GmbH in Mönchengladbach.
The canteen is the heart of any company. It is not only the place people go for a shared lunch, but in a relaxed atmosphere it also offers the perfect setting for an exchange across departments. The menu, adapted to individual diets, is just as varied. The days when chalkboards were enough to present the offer are, however, long gone. At NEW, the vegan-vegetarian, regionally influenced menu lines are advertised on a large-format 65-inch monitor as well as via two 43-inch steles. Handling is simple: the weekly menu is filled automatically every day through an interface of the merchandise-management software Menü+. Alongside the illustrated presentation, prices, symbols identifying the dish (vegetarian, vegan or type of meat) and allergens can also be shown. And that is not all: cloud icons illustrate the climate footprint of the respective dish and thus take account of growing climate and environmental awareness. In Mönchengladbach, Primus even goes one step further and offers a “Taste-No-Waste” dish every Friday, created from surplus food.
Partnership-based, regional and innovative. NEW’s actions are guided by these core values. This is also reflected in how the canteen is run. Primus offers NEW’s staff and guests a regionally typical and sustainable range of meals and uses innovative software for the digital menu display. NEW supplies around 450,000 customers with electricity, 160,000 with gas and 100,000 with water, and stands for a partnership-based, regional and innovative energy and water supply. With 2,200 employees, it is therefore not only an important part of the local economy, but also one of the largest employers.
“Thanks to the software interface to Menü+ created by viewneo and BlaueErdbeere, the digital presentation of the dishes happens automatically and enables us to declare the food in a way that is comprehensive, transparent and easy to understand. The digital platform also helps us inform our guests in a targeted way about special promotions and offers. In modern workplace catering, digitalisation has long since stopped being an optional extra and become a matter of course,” sums up Samira Ganschinietz, head of marketing at Primus Service GmbH.
