Interviewee
Reda Attahri, Co-Founder at Contek Pro, a leading US manufacturer of sustainable factory-built kitchens for food service providers and hospitality businesses. These turnkey modular kitchens are a fast-to-deploy, hassle-free and eco-friendly alternative to traditional brick & mortar kitchens.
Transcript
Reda Attahri: So actually the story of ContekPro is the story of a family startup, which is quite unusual. I'm talking about a family startup because the other co-founder of ContekPro is actually my brother Yassin. He founded the company late 2016, if I remember well in Auckland, California. And at that time the company was a vertical agnostic modular building manufacturer, which means that the company was manufacturing anything that was modular and prefabricated. I'm referring to offices, sanitary buildings, kitchens, healthcare buildings, etcetera.
Then I joined the company in April, 2019 as a co-founder in charge of the business development and marketing side. While Yesin is more in charge of the operations, manufacturing, and production at this moment, we made two decisions. The first one was to focus on one vertical and one product, and it's going to be kitchens because we need notice, a lot of demand for it from our customers. And because there was a real problem with kitchens. Kitchens are the most complicated commercial building to build in the industry. There were a lot of pain points for our customers. And the second decision we've made with Yesin was to transition from a construction projects approach to a products approach. What do we mean by this is that instead of working on projects, we'll turn it into a standardized product with predefined features, predefined technical aspects, predefined sales process, and a predefined delivery process. We want food service providers, kitchen providers, restaurants, catering companies to be able to buy modular, turnkey kitchens, like they buy a piece of equipment. So everything is standardized and they can buy it in a very simple way. So right now the value proposition we offer them is that we tell them instead of building a brick and mortar kitchen, what about you go for a prefabricated modular kitchen?
Elisa Muñoz: And I wanted to ask, like I know that you guys just created a partnership with Picnic Works this month, so congratulations on that. Would you mind sharing a little bit about it?
Reda Attahri: I must confess that it's one of the most exciting things we have done this year and we're so, so looking forward to launching our products with them next year. We have a lot of similarities with this company. The first, we are both two Pacific Northwest companies, so they're based in Seattle while we're based in Portland. So we're very close to each other.
And the second similarity is that our visions are totally aligned. We both aim to leverage manufacturing and technology to build the future of food service. So how did the conversations start with them? We realized that we share the same customer segments and these customers, they face the same pain points. So what are these pain points? Indeed, we think that we've entered a new post-pandemic world where we are faced and we deal with labor shortage, both in food service and in construction. What are the consequences? The consequences for food space providers is that opening and running a pizza restaurant today have become very expensive and takes a lot of time.
So we've decided to create this partnership where contact form is providing the modeler, kitchen prefabricated and turnkey and Picnic is providing their extraordinary and amazing automated pizza make line. And this partnership aims to create and develop the first modeler, automated pizza kitchen. Here again, what are the benefits for food service providers? The first benefit is a financial and cost one. So we are able today to lower the startup cost to launch a pizza kitchen or pizza restaurant up to 20, 20% cheaper than building a pizza kitchen. The second one is that we also were also able, thanks to this partnership, to reduce the operating costs. And number three, in terms of time, as I told you earlier, we are able to, to reduce your, your speed to market and, and help you deploy a kitchen 50% faster than if you build.
And the second similarity is that our visions are totally aligned. We both aim to leverage manufacturing and technology to build the future of food service.
Elisa Muñoz: I think that having this opportunity is gonna be great for both companies. What do you think this kind of announcement means for your company?
Reda Attahri: So I can already tell you what it means because we've noticed a lot of traction and interest for this partnership. And what it exactly means for us is that so far our company has been in the markets of traditional kitchens with traditional cooking refrigeration equipment. But right now it means that our company is stepping into the world of automated kitchens. I'm not going to spoil you today, but we already have some other discussions with some other automated kitchen providers. So we really, really believe in, in this, in this market, and we believe that the future is going to be both modular and at the same time automated. So right now what we're working on with Picnic is that we're right now designing a whole new product line where you'll have different layouts depending on your location, depending on your size, depending on your volume of service you desire. And we're planning to launch this with them in Q1 2023 along with several new models we're preparing right now.
Elisa Muñoz: Wow, that's really soon. And that was actually my next question. So, now that we have talked about the next steps, can you share what progress has been made today since you started the company?
Reda Attahri: Absolutely. Let's start first with the product itself. We've managed to launch several new layouts and models so far focusing on hospitality businesses and focusing on the quick service restaurant. So we've managed to work with a lot of reputable and large customers throughout the us. So right now we have manufactured over 150 modular units, kitchens, bars, working coolers, working freezers, all combined. And they've been all deployed throughout something like 20 or 25 states in the, in the US Additionally, we have units deployed in the Caribbean, Bahamas, US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and even in, in, in Africa through some military contractors. So our company has been really fast growing and the decisions we have made three or four years go are bringing their fruits and our pay in additionally still in terms of products we're launching in California and we're starting with California for the first time, end-to-end building service, which means that right now not only we'll be able to provide the kitchen itself, which will also take care of the installation of our, our units. So this goes in the direction of the hassle-free customer service we're aiming to launch. Additionally, what we're doing right now is that we're hiring a lot of people. So in case you're passionate about food, manufacturing, construction, if you're looking for an exciting adventure where we aim to revolutionize the way commercial kitchens are built, don't hesitate to contact us. We'd be more than excited to talk with you.
Elisa Muñoz: And last but not least, do you have any advice for future entrepreneurs or future engineers who are listening to us?
Reda Attahri: Absolutely. So the main tip I would, main tip and advice I would, I would, I would give is to be focused and keep it simple. That's the main thing. I would, I would say, so in case you are launching either hardware or, or, or, or a software focus on a specific and niche market, that's exactly what we've done. So we're in, we're we can be considered as a modular construction manufacturer. So instead of dealing with multiple customer segments, we have decided to focus and to be the best and to be the leader on one specific market, it's, it's going to be kitchens. So do the same in case you start a business and keep it simple by starting with a simple product that deals and addresses some simple and specific pain points. We've done it, it's working.
Elisa Muñoz: Perfect. Thank you so much. That’s definitely helpful to everyone.
Reda Attahri: Thanks a lot. It was a pleasure.
