Each product, from the entry to the top level, must feature high quality standards. This is made-in-Italy according to Reber.
In the heart of the Po Plain, on the border between Emilia Romagna and Lombardy regions, there is a reality that makes kitchen small appliances with a special focus on the machines and accessories that allow you to store and preserve food with a vacuum system. This is Reber. Founded fifty years ago, as a family business, by Gilberto Re and his partner Dino Bertoni, today it is a plant of over 5,000 square meters, in the village of Correggioverde di Dosolo, in the province of Mantua. The new headquarters, which opened in 2013, joins the headquarters with the production plant.
Maurizio Re, sales manager of Reber
Maurizio Re, sales manager of Reber
Tradition and innovation: how do they live together in your mission?
These two elements are our mission. The Reber products, in fact, are used to maintain, improve and innovate the local traditions of food preparation. They are constantly updated and improved with noble and recyclable materials in order to reduce energy consumption, environmental impact, and to avoid waste, both in the production stage and in everyday use of the appliances themselves.
Has the balance between these two components led to specific measures in terms of productive organization?
The specialization and the specificity of each sector make appropriate the dialogue with experts in the field of energy-saving, materials and manufacturing solutions. The opinions exchange with these partners allows us to find different solutions to our needs, often reaching different results, sometimes unexpected, from which we had conceived at the time when the idea took shape. We do not start thinking about how a product can be realized, but thinking about what we want it to be or to do. With this idea we go to solicit the technical team – that will have to make the product – mediating between what we want and what it is possible to do. Sometimes we succeed to get even what we thought it would not possible to do, such as the vacuum system we have recently patented, that guarantees a significant energy-saving.
How do you manage to intercept or anticipate new trends in demand?
To attend events and trade fairs is important. In the same way, we try to pay attention to the reality around us, even in markets different from our own. Besides, we look with a keen eye at the world of social networks and media, from which interesting cues and unexpected influences come, that are reflected in the world of the appliances for the home and for the kitchen.
What tools allow you to meet the specific needs of a buyer?
Having maintained the production within the company, but also the standardization of components and the modular design of the products, has allowed us to react quickly to the market demands. Since we offer especially seasonal products, these factors can make a difference for sellers that have the product available for sale at the right time, avoiding stock-outs.
Which positioning do you intend to pursue in the future?
We operate in a niche sector for the trade, where fortunately the price is not the only parameter that they use to evaluate our reality and its offer. We will have more and more the need to cover all types of customer targets, from professional products up to the cheap ones. The only thing we think opportune to avoid is the exasperation of the low price: we do not want to go below a minimum threshold of quality, even knowing that we are not the most “aggressive” in this sense. Who buys Reber has to be sure that, even buying a low price product, he will have guarantees of quality and safety they must not renounce to.
Are the international certifications an opportunity to reaffirm the intrinsic value of your production?
The certifications are an important business card in many markets, but also an internal stimulus to keep the attention focused on the issues of quality and safety, core values for this kind of products. It is now thirty years since we started to certify our equipment in order to attest their intrinsic quality and the quality of the production process.
What does the expression “Made in Italy” suggest to you nowadays?
It stands for well-made products, that meet the needs of the customer, and do not lead him to think, with a pinch of resignation, that he had to content himself. A made-in Italy item is created to provide a service or utility, merging in the best way technical aesthetic and productive qualities.
What characteristics allow a national product to stand out in the global market?
It comes to the front for its quality construction and functionality. Equally important, it has the ability to adapt to the customer requirements, characteristics and special needs.
How can they represent an added value for a buyer who invests in an Italian brand?
The added value comes from the certainty to have a prompt response in case of special requests or for the resolution of problems and in facing the unexpected. But also from the ability to meet the market trends promptly and with inventiveness.
Do you think it would be desirable a stronger synergy among producers to strengthen the made-in-Italy in the world?
Certainly. Italian entrepreneurship is traditionally composed by small or medium firms and collaborations help companies to overcome the obstacles that can arise from their size, while mantaining the typical dynamism of the family business.
| Step by step "As a boy, during the summer holidays, I used to go to work on the farm as a laborer. Once I completed my studies and obtained the degree, my commitment has become daily. Starting from the production, I gained experience in the different areas of the company up to achieve the sales office: here I started to receive personally the customer visits. Until today, as sales manager, I personally manage the relationships with the most important stakeholders of Reber. My passion for sports, basketball and rugby in particular, taught me that the results at work are always the fruits of commitment and labour. I like to transmit this concept to my staff, stimulating in them a healthy sense of competition". |
| All made at home Reber is a historic producer of mincers, pasta-presses, tomato juicer, meat mincers and graters. Subsequently, in full coherence with the nature of these items, it has expanded its offer in the segment of the sausage fillers and vacuum machines. From the conceptual point of view, this choice has been the closing of the circle: to the useful products for preparing food at home, we added others to preserve it. In a strategic sense, all this has led to a growth in turnover and gave Reber the opportunity to confront with new realities. Today, 40% of the turnover of the company is developed just by the vacuum machines and related accessories. The line that gives life to the vacuum packaging machines has been developed internally. |
Freshness Tomato sauce, jam, minced meat, sausages and other homemade specialties may preserve freshness and flavor intact thanks to the machines for vacuum: Tekno and Salvaspesa models are an example of this. A product like this allows to prepare meals at a time that is considered more comfortable, preserve them and use them when needed. For those who use these products, this process is translated in two advantages: the use of safe ingredients and the better time management. All units in the Reber vacuum range support a patented system that reduces energy consumption by almost 50%.  |
