A glimpse behind the scenes of Brotlocker shows: it wasn’t born in an ivory tower. In fact, it came to fruition due to the specific needs of the bakery industry, which we repeatedly discussed in detail with bakers during the course of our shop fitting projects. In this respect, it is anything but a coincidence that we at Schweitzer Ladenbau, of all people, came up with the idea for Brotlocker.
During the discussions we noticed that almost every baker has a problem in one area: the difference between extreme peak and idle times and the resulting staffing problem. Being the creative and innovative company that we are, we couldn’t help but put our thinking caps on to solve the problem. The only question was how?
Based on our many years of experience in shop fitting, we came up with the idea of a kind of lockable counter that had to be able to be opened by the customer. We headed to Südback 2019 in Stuttgart with our first prototype. We met with such a good response there that we decided to develop Brotlocker further. The initial problem with this was the locking/opening mechanism and payment. After a few months of development work, we had solved both of these problems and built a first working prototype of the Brotlocker.
One key insight during the development process was that with Brotlocker we were not just managing to find an answer to the staffing problem and capacity utilisation issue. What’s more, Brotlocker also opens up additional sales prospects and enables every bakery to get into the online sale of its baked goods conveniently and securely.
We are specialists for bakeries, patisseries and cafés. In our extensive discussions introducing Brotlocker to end consumers and asking for input and suggestions for improvement, the question kept coming up: Why are we only serving bakeries and why only bread? There were many ideas of what else could be done with Brotlocker. Either a pick-up station at the business hotel for breakfast or a picnic basket to collect at the leisure hotel. Placing orders in the webshop on public holidays because of relatives visiting or picking up lunch in the thermobox would be other conceivable areas of use.
Our original idea was always about the individual order. Starting from our webshop, which we sell together with Brotlocker, or a customer’s own webshop, each sales process usually starts with an individual order. However, in our development meetings, we heard from potential customers that they would also like to use Brotlocker as a vending machine. So it would no longer be a question of a pre-ordered product but of a unit that plays an essential role in impulse buys. With the difference though that Brotlocker not only dispenses goods but also makes a perfectly staged sales experience for handcrafted high-quality products possible. So we developed Brotlocker further and also equipped it with the payment terminal feature.
Based on our many years of experience in shop fitting, we came up with the idea of a kind of lockable counter that had to be able to be opened by the customer. We headed to Südback 2019 in Stuttgart with our first prototype. We met with such a good response there that we decided to develop Brotlocker further. The initial problem with this was the locking/opening mechanism and payment. After a few months of development work, we had solved both of these problems and built a first working prototype of the Brotlocker.
One key insight during the development process was that with Brotlocker we were not just managing to find an answer to the staffing problem and capacity utilisation issue. What’s more, Brotlocker also opens up additional sales prospects and enables every bakery to get into the online sale of its baked goods conveniently and securely.
We are specialists for bakeries, patisseries and cafés. In our extensive discussions introducing Brotlocker to end consumers and asking for input and suggestions for improvement, the question kept coming up: Why are we only serving bakeries and why only bread? There were many ideas of what else could be done with Brotlocker. Either a pick-up station at the business hotel for breakfast or a picnic basket to collect at the leisure hotel. Placing orders in the webshop on public holidays because of relatives visiting or picking up lunch in the thermobox would be other conceivable areas of use.
Our original idea was always about the individual order. Starting from our webshop, which we sell together with Brotlocker, or a customer’s own webshop, each sales process usually starts with an individual order. However, in our development meetings, we heard from potential customers that they would also like to use Brotlocker as a vending machine. So it would no longer be a question of a pre-ordered product but of a unit that plays an essential role in impulse buys. With the difference though that Brotlocker not only dispenses goods but also makes a perfectly staged sales experience for handcrafted high-quality products possible. So we developed Brotlocker further and also equipped it with the payment terminal feature.