The technological evolution of burners goes on, confirming an extremely dynamic and growing market, where ARC plays a protagonist role.
Good news come from the market of professional cooking and then of burners. The main economic indicators highlight manifold positive signs, which finally transform the complicated biennium of pandemic into a distant memory. It is time of looking again at the present and at the future of the sector with renewed confidence, word of Loris Gasparini, General Manager of ARC. «The professional cooking sector lived a time of great recovery once ended the Covid emergency, due to the restart of all catering activities and to people’s newfound desire of resuming socializing and meetings. Since the third 2022-quarter, we have witnessed a slowdown of the economic activity, mainly owing to three factors: political and economic uncertainties caused by the conflict in Ukraine, the related rise of energy costs and inflation. Despite these elements, the sector where we operate is sound and our customer companies are well structured. Tourism, sector traditionally linked with hospitality and catering, enjoys – both in Italy and abroad – good health and people’s desire of sociality has not decreased: this lets us look at the next future with confidence».
Burners: the three values of ARC
From this point of view, ARC’s contribution to the resilience and the dynamism of the sector is granted by the constant evolution of products, constantly keeping pace with customers’ requirements and expectations. «We can summarize the evolution trend of ARC products in three concepts: reliability, safety and performances», Gasparini comments. «Concerning the reliability, when a chef enters the kitchen, he must have the absolute certainty he will rely on the perfect operation of its equipment and ARC burners are designed, and they constantly evolve, to assure absolute reliability in time: we choose and we size materials and treatments to grant almost unlimited resistance in spite of the intense use to which our products are subjected».
In the opinion of ARC, the second irremissible value for its products is safety, granted by decades of expertise. «Safety for a burner essentially means to have a perfect combustion, besides resisting accidental overflow of liquids or foods during the use and preserving the integrity in time of all of its components, even the most delicate like thermocouples and pilot flames. A chef, who uses a professional kitchen equipped with ARC burners for his work, has the certainty of relying on the best product on the market. Moreover, ARC burners are safe because they operate with all kinds of available gases on the world market: our presence spread on a world scale and our forty-year know-how (the company was founded in 1981) are a guarantee indeed».
The third value on which ARC stakes for its products are performances, which match high power and high efficiency. «They are the two parameters that define the performances of a professional burner. And ARC burners are at the top of the market. However, we have to pay utmost attention, because power and efficiency are often two inversely proportional data: if one grows the other drops and vice versa. It is no longer a problem for ARC burners to speak of high power and high efficiency: our products’ technical refinement and the maniac care in precision and control have allowed us to hit both targets simultaneously».
An offer in constant evolution
To satisfy its customers’ expectations promptly, when professional burners are at stake, ARC enriches the broad product offer with punctual services. «Our customers are the manufacturers of professional kitchens: when they choose ARC they know they will have ARC’s technical support and competence at their disposal, they know they will have the chance of installing in their kitchens constantly upgraded and evolved products, at the highest market levels, they know that if they pick up the phone and call us, on the other side they will often find the maximum of collaboration and of professionalism», Gasparini states and adds: «In terms of product, our lines of burners are so many that we can affirm in ARC they will certainly find what they need from both the technical point of view and of the cooking culture they intend to satisfy. I am referring to the Asian or Indian ethnic cooking, or to the one of the Mediterranean basin: cooking ways that need very different burners to obtain excellent results».
Precisely for these reasons, to satisfy a diversified international demand, the offer of ARC products is in constant transformation, as it has been demonstrated on the occasion of an important exhibition event. «The evolution of our products, that is to say the new burners, has been presented at Host 2023. The first novelty concerns a series of burners equipped with a solution featuring a strong innovative content, for which we have filed a patent application. The second concerns an evolution of our burners Series 102: as I said before, our products are constantly studied and verified, they constantly evolve and our customers rely on this unceasing evolution; well, this series of burners has undergone a substantial technical refinement that once more makes it rank in an excellence ambit by combining power and efficiency. The third novelty is our burner Series 65 DCC-PRO: the burners of the series 65 are an icon by ARC on the international market; this series is now enriched by the 65 DCC-PRO burner, a single burner with a power that can be adjusted in a range from 1 kw to 13 kw. Something never seen before, indeed».
Manufactured to make the difference
Going more into detail of the offer by ARC, S102 and 65 DCC-PRO burners deserve particular highlight, in virtue of their special characteristics, able to distinguish them from other solutions. «The burners of the 102 Series offer unequalled powers at very aggressive prices: it is an interesting Series of burners from many points of view. S65 DCC-PRO burner, which joins a very extended range of burners such as the Series 65, is a high-end burner suitable for applications on high-level products where the chef desires having all the functions of a “simmer” burner (at very low power to be able to cook at very low fire or to maintain the already cooked dishes at controlled temperature), combined with a very powerful burner that allows preparing huge food quantities. To explain you with an example: it is as if at home you could heat the saucepan containing a cup of milk for breakfast on the same burner on which boiling the water to prepare pasta for 15 people, everything using the same burner. However, the most “disruptive” Series of burners is the patented one that we have presented at the exhibition».
Moreover, target users of S102 and 65 DCC-PRO burners are the most different, since they are versatile and innovative products able to satisfy actually all requirements. «Burners Series 102 are suitable for modular kitchens: they actually suit all uses – from the “fancy” restaurant to the big hotel’s kitchen – their use is foreseen in mid-range products. We expect a great circulation of these burners: cheap and super-powerful, they will give that extra-edge to our customers’ stoves.
65DCC-PRO is a burner suiting very high-level applications, typically those that we sector players call “Monoblocs”. The technical characteristics are very high and innovative and then also its implementation is complex. It is a luxury burner for a very high-end product range».
Profession: total supplier
Certainly, even living a favourable market phase, in the sector of professional cooking and of burners challenges are not naturally missing. In particular, due to its product strategy in constant evolution, ARC also answers to those legislators and local administrators who are reducing the methane supply of new buildings, claiming a highly questionable greater health and safety of electrical equipment. «With 40 years of history and presence in the sector of burners for the catering equipment, ARC perfectly knows that the economic management of the kitchen of a restaurant or of a hotel (but also of a large cooking centre) is achieved through the attentive management of more energy sources», Gasparini points out. «Therefore, if we want to obtain an economically valid management in the food preparation and then assuring survival and profitability to the economic activity (either restaurant, hotel or cooking centre), gas and electric energy must mandatorily live together. We believe that giving up in the kitchen one of the two possible energy sources is shortsighted indeed».
On the other hand, experiences on the field prove that ARC’s observations are right, demonstrating how much the daily reality is more fluid than what legislators and local administrators themselves imagine. «Not unfrequently, we find restaurants that have powers of installed energy equal or exceeding the power in Kw installed in ARC, where we have big machines for our production. The distribution network of natural gas in Italy and throughout Europe is kike a widespread venous system, which arrives almost everywhere, granting provisioning continuity of a largely available and cheap resource (if free from geopolitical influences): and with which in Europe we produce the vast majority of the electric energy. Let us remind that restaurants’ kitchens work also in the evening, when solar panels do not produce energy». It is useful to remember that, according to a joint study by the University of Parma, of Singapore and of Marche, an electric hob emits less CO2 than a gas hob if the electric energy used comes at least by 70% from renewable (or nuclear) sources. Until the electric energy used is produced from fossil fuel by over 30%, CO2 emissions are bigger than a gas hob’s.
In the meantime, ARC’s commitment to designing future sector scenarios goes on, as confirmed by the next scheduled steps of research and development activities. «The burner of the future will be smart, electronically controlled and very efficient. Electronics will give a great contribution also concerning this and, thanks to the synergies that we can develop with the other companies of Sabaf Group, we will certainly have our say in the matter».
On these sound foundations, ARC’s market targets confirm to be more than rosy. The message that the company sends to the market is as precise as positive. «We look at 2024 with great trust and with a larger presence of ARC in global markets, backed by a well-tested sales network that operates everywhere thanks to the synergies with the parent company; besides, we are optimist that the new products can give further boost since the early phases to ARC, so that it can be considered a “total” supplier», Gasparini ends.
