A smarter caffeine kick in the office

Boostbar develops and implements non-staffed catering concepts for companies throughout Switzerland which can be customised according to customer requirements, and range from snacks, hot and cold drinks to fresh and warm meals. The speciality coffees in the Boostbar concepts are prepared using Schaerer coffee machines.

In an interview, Colin Häusler told us more about Boostbar's range of products and why Schaerer is the perfect partner when it comes to coffee.

Boostbar was founded with the vision of offering a smart premium vending concept for employee catering. Then Coronavirus hit, and the offices were suddenly empty. In some areas, however, work was still being carried out on site, for example in production. This meant companies were facing the challenge of organising employee meals, especially as restaurants were closed at the height of the pandemic. Suddenly, there was an increased demand for unstaffed catering concepts, and there were limited options here on the market at the time. This situation gave rise to the idea of further developing Boostbar to offer the right overall concept of snacks, meals and speciality coffees for every workplace situation. Naturally, autonomous and networked to meet the new requirements. The basis for this is the cloud-based software solution Vendlive developed by Boost inc, the international technology company behind Boostbar.

For an all-round gourmet experience, we rely on the combination of a high-quality food and beverage offerings and a positive user experience thanks to digital technologies in modern vending machines. The focus is on individual customer requirements: Depending on the operational requirements and size, a Boostbar concept might consist of a sales unit for beverages and snacks, incorporate multiple vending machines for cold and hot meals including a coffee concept, or represent a complete mini-market with an extensive range of products. Our core competence is to redefine the user experience at a vending machine.

Specifically, to network the Boostbar concepts with our digital solution Vendlive, fit them with large touch displays for intuitive selection and ordering and to equip them with various payment options – from credit cards to Twint to employee badges, Lunch-Check, Reka-Check or connection to apps with even more functions. Our product philosophy is based on zero-waste principles and is intended to provide the customer with the most sustainable option. With Boostbar concepts, for example, there are no products containing palm oil and the focus is on Swiss snacks & beverage suppliers who share our quality and sustainability standards. 

The founders of Boostbar include Evelin Rosa, coffee expert and winner of the Swiss SCA Cup Tasters Championship 2018. It was obvious that Boostbar intended to offer the best coffee. In developing our own roasts for the Swiss market, we also saw the opportunity to offer our customers added value by accurately matching our coffee to the taste preferences of their employees. This is because even though Switzerland is quite a small country, people in French-speaking Switzerland prefer a different coffee flavour than in German-speaking Switzerland or Ticino. By using our own blends, we are best placed to take this into account. In addition, we roast the certified organic, Fairtrade beans in Switzerland, underscoring the freshness and sustainability of our coffee. The success of our quality strategy is demonstrated by the fact that we have succeeded in all tastings by potential customers on site for over 15 months.

Absolutely! There are now well over 200 customers across Switzerland who have opted for Boostbar concepts at their workplace. These include well-known companies such as Swisscom, Siemens and Geberit. One definite reason for this encouraging development is that we are meeting a current trend with Boostbar: companies want to encourage their employees to come to the office more often instead of preferring their convenient home offices. Many also rely on a high-quality catering offering that can be enjoyed quickly and cost-effectively at any time.

However, from a business perspective, the concept needs to be reliable, cost-effective and offer the flexibility to easily adapt it to actual requirements. That's exactly what Boostbar offers. In addition, we are still one of the few providers who offer comprehensive vending solutions from a single source, including servicing. This makes Boostbar increasingly appealing for other applications. For example, for hotels wanting to provide a 24/7 offering in the hotel lobby, or for hospitals as a supplemental service to the canteen.

It is always the combination of beans, machines and settings that ultimately results in the best possible quality in the cup. When it came to finding the right coffee machine partner for Boostbar, Evelin conducted tastings with our roasting mixtures on coffee machines from different manufacturers. With Schaerer, alongside the coffee flavour we were also impressed by the quality of the milk foam. In addition, tests were conducted on which machines best fit our requirements and meet the needs of our customers and their employees.

As we work with unstaffed concepts, the machines must be highly reliable and minimally susceptible to malfunctions, even at high consumption volumes. In addition, they must be easy to use, both for the service technicians, and of course also for end customers. The combination of reliable, unstaffed operation, ease of use and the desired flavour profile of our blends, which we were able to achieve utilising the various adjustment options on the machines, was the reason why we chose Schaerer.

In fact, integrating Schaerer machines into our ecosystem is very easy, as they have all the prerequisites for digital networking and can easily be connected to our solution via an interface. On our platform, we can then view all relevant data and evaluate it. In addition, we can immediately see if something is not working, for example a payment system is offline or a transaction has been cancelled. This allows us to respond faster and also provide better customer service.

Another benefit is that we can access the coffee machines remotely and therefore supply all desired machines with information from headquarters. This also means a significant time saving. To achieve the optimal end customer experience at the coffee machine or to meet the requirements of our customers, we can also customise the Schaerer coffee machine displays.

Absolutely – we still have big plans. From the very beginning, we worked together very closely and in partnership. We also particularly appreciate that Schaerer took us very seriously as a small startup, believed in us and provided us with optimal support. For the future, we have a great many ideas on how to further expand our partnership. For example, we are currently intensifying collaboration between our IT specialists and Schaerer's product management team. In this way, we are uniting IT and coffee expertise to improve the combined offering and customer experience even further for all Schaerer customers.

To read the full article, click here.