If cooking is art, the work tools are crucial
Interview with Alessandro Vetuschi of Yesovens
Interview with Alessandro Vetuschi, General Manager of Yesovens. The importance of the oven in professional kitchens, the market trends and future developments of an avant-garde product line.
What does a professional of the field require above all, from a professional oven nowadays?
First of all, it is essential that it cooks well and precisely: today the standards are getting higher and higher and the end user is very demanding. A professional oven must therefore be reliable, simple, and intuitive to use. Every day, thousands of professionals dedicate passion and sacrifice to the dishes we consume: their equipment must enhance, and not hinder, this effort.
We also have to consider that the market became very diversified in recent years. YESOVENS works with high level chefs and confectioners, but it also helps novice professionals and operators of simpler catering. An oven product line must meet everyone’s needs: reliability, simplicity, and performances are the common base of the entire line, but the technology must be projected to the current and future market demands.
In your opinion, among the characteristics of Yesovens products, which one can make a difference in the way we work and in the results in the kitchen?
Our range of products is designed to meet the needs of different professional categories: for every type of job in the kitchen there is a suitable oven with specific functions and advantages. Our top range Ego, for example, in addition to generating direct steam, mounts a power-efficient, last generation boiler that simplifies low-temperature steam cooking. Mood and Mosaico have handles that facilitate the opening and closing of the door, and are quite narrow (the space in the kitchen is crucial). Essential has a quick disassemble system of the inner glass for easy cleaning.
All the professional line can be set to bake up to 300 °C and is available with high energy-performance gas supply.
How important is research and how does it affect the development of a Yesovens oven? In which aspects of the product does innovation show the most?
Innovation is essential for Yesovens. Without innovation, in this field you will not survive for long: the market strongly requires it, also thanks to the generational changes.
When the oven was considered just a machine to produce heat, being reliable was enough, fast, at most. Today, steaming, frying, grilling, is all taken for granted, and all with the same machine.
As a start-up in the field, the first step was to realize a structurally and technically functional product line, reliable and with an innovative design. The products are all certified by the appropriate institutions that provide such service.
We are a team of people with a real experience in the field: we personally believe in this project and share ideas and experiences with our technicians and engineers every day. We are working on several innovative projects that will be released in the near future. It is a huge job that involves many people in research and development, but it is also our edge: our mission is to think like our users to anticipate their demands.
Gastronomy, cuisine, and patisserie are highly professional fields, but also highly creative: what is the role of the oven in this context?
The oven has a crucial role: it transforms and completes the preparation of the chef and pastry chef for the final product, so it can make a difference.
We offer the most modern cooking techniques, precisely to meet different needs. For example, the ‘cook and chill’ technique allows you to prepare meals in advance and then regenerate them in the combi oven at the time of use, while preserving their organoleptic properties. This reduces waste and optimizes work at the peak hours of service. The result is that the consumer will benefit from better quality and choice, the chef can experiment and offer more ideas, and the restaurateur can increase profit. A single technology that results in quality, freedom, and advantages for all.
In a field where we always talk about technology and performance, Yesovens identifies itself with a very different brand identity: the professional oven as a form of contemporary art. In what sense can an oven be art?
It is a field of consolidated and well laid out companies, with many years of experience and considerable market shares.
Yesovens is a new reality and wants to be so also in the way it communicates.
Art is visible in many things we do in everyday life; it is much more present than we think it is. Anything that gives us feelings of pleasure and beauty is a form of art. Cuisine in particular has many forms of art: the dishes stimulate all our senses – not just sight and taste – and satisfy the body. So, for each preparation there is a research to create something that encloses a form of art.
For us, art is doing things right, in a workmanlike manner, precisely, just like our ovens: innovative design developed on the real customer expectations.
The true artist is and remains the chef. We just provide a tool, but an indispensable one: no one expects to see painting tools on display in a museum, but where would the Mona Lisa be without canvas, brushes, and paints?
How is the market responding to your offer, both for products and communication?
The market response is excellent, both with respect to the performance of the products and to the way we communicate. Our products are also well suited to aesthetic customizations, to meet the customer’s needs more and more.
We are a young company with clear ideas about our goals: the Essential, Mosaico, Mood, and Ego product lines gave us excellent results in terms of impact on the market, but our research and development team is already working on the future, with further innovations.
And the feedback of the operators? What do cooks and professionals appreciate the most about the Yesovens ovens?
The feedback is very positive and at the same time they provide us with useful ideas for the next developments, orienting us in the direction indicated directly by the market. A kind of listening that is really perceived as added value. It is as if every client had their own professional team that develops the ovens according to their needs: this greatly satisfies our clients and makes us proud.