RATIONAL AG is the global market and technology leader for innovative cooking solutions for professional kitchens. The RATIONAL headquarter is located in Landsberg am Lech, Germany close to Munich.
With more than 20 sales subsidiaries worldwide they are selling their products in more than 120 countries.
Products
Their main product is the in 2020 newly launched iCombi Pro, a combi oven with intelligent cooking processes. In a combi oven heat is transferred via steam and hot air. It replaces conventional cooking appliances such as grills or convection ovens. As a complementary product, we offer the iVario, which cooks with contact heat or in liquid and can replace other traditional cooking appliances such as deep fryers, kettles, or tilting pans.
The software of the iCombi Pro and the iVario controls the cooking process until the desired result is achieved. Due to the cooking intelligence a kitchen can be run with unskilled personnel. This is gaining importance as there is less and less trained chefs available worldwide. With those to pieces of equipment, more than 90 % of all cooking processes can be performed and more than 70 % sales are realised.
Services – After Sales Business
In addition, RATIONAL offers plenty of services for customers, like accessories, care products, spare parts, training and technical services, which makes up for the rest of the sales revenues. ConnectedCooking is a cloud-based networking solution to network appliances, monitor, control, update, and transfer cooking profiles remotely. With ConnectedCooking Pro, they just started offering customers further fee-based digital applications for optimising their kitchen processes.
Customers – Market Potential
The customer base ranges from restaurants and hotels to company canteens, hospitals, schools, universities, military, prisons and retirement homes, as well as quick-service restaurants, party services, supermarkets, bakery and snack shops, butchers, petrol stations and delivery services including so-called ghost kitchens. Retail catering, take-away business and Ghost Kitchens are gaining market share in this crisis.
Despite the crisis, around four million kitchens worldwide are deemed addressable, of which the vast majority still use traditional cooking technology. This allows them to grow organically through deeper market penetration. We still see many continued megatrends like population growth, urbanisation, and rising prosperity in some emerging markets.
Strategy
An essential foundation of the company’s success is the focus on cooking and on professional kitchens. This enables them to offer customers ever better solutions. The RATIONAL combi steamer is regarded as one of the most important appliances in the kitchen.
Dominant Market Position – Good Financial KPIs
Results of high customer satisfaction are a market share of close to 50 %, repurchase rates of more than 90 % and a positive financial performance. Pre-corona RATIONAL achieved high single-digit growth rates and EBIT-margins beyond the 25 %. In addition, they have an extraordinary healthy balance sheet and comfortable liquidity situation.
Mid-term outlook positive
The market position and solid financing, excellent employees and top leaders are giving us confidence to continue the growth path when the corona crisis is over.
April 22, 2021
38:42 
seat11a – Publicly Listed Companies: Elevator Pitch, Deep-Dive, Financial Results, and ESG
Reviews for RATIONAL AG Deep Dive 2021 | Mastering Modern Cooking with iCombi & iVario with IR