It developed around the concepts of sustainability and sharing the first Global Summit of the world manufacturers of professional appliances for catering and hospitality staged in Milan, in the suggestive frame of Vigna di Leonardo, on the occasion of the opening of the biennial Host exhibition. A summit promoted by Efcem, the European Category Federation, with the organizational contribution of Efcem Italia and the coordination of Evaldo Porro, Efcem past president. The target of the summit was to systematize common processes and procedures to supply products of comparable and verifiable quality in a global market where catering requires an increasingly differentiated and targeted customization to increase the appliance efficiency, mainly aiming at the reduction of electricity, gas and water consumptions.
More efficiency, minor consumptions, appliance safety, energy labelling (in which Europe is leader, driven by the very recent European regulation for the energy labelling for professional refrigeration appliances), but also sharing of technical and use data according to common protocols of open type or, besides, harmonization of national and continental regulations towards common qualitative standards. These the concepts summarized by Michael Whiteley, Nafem President, and reconfirmed by Steve Loughton, new Efcem President, who also supported warmly an increasingly strict and fruitful relationship among the European associations of producers and the regulatory authorities in Brussels. Man and environment are the reference points of an “energy-eating” sector that, as highlighted by researches carried out by Efcem Italia, with adequate policies of energy efficiency and consequent product improvements, in the next few years might benefit from a consumption reduction by about 30% and by the proportional decrease of CO2 emissions that today amount to around 10,200 Mton/year. It is consistent with this orientation the decision taken in this summit of implementing a White Book to present the industry’s policy about the product innovation, use of new technologies and the need of developing adequate environmental sustainability policies, in addition to the sharing of common educational systems for the training of catering managers on a world scale.
Finally, concerning the data sharing and the harmonization of design and installation, they analysed thoroughly the content and the value of EfcemBim (Building Information Modelling), an information platform developed by Efcem to provide a high integration level in the projects of the professional kitchen environment and of the catering system. Participants, who represented the three continental organizations, ended the day making a date in February 2016 in London, when they will discuss and finalize the first operational proposals.
