Evo America strives to provide the ultimate in kitchen design and flexibility through its ventless cooking portfolio. With a range of innovative products, including the signature ventless griddle, the Middleby portfolio is redefining both the commercial and residential culinary spaces. Scott Heim, President of Evo America and Middleby Ventless Solutions, tells us more.
TOMORROW’S CULINARY EXPERIENCES TODAY
Grilling and barbecuing are deeply ingrained in American culture, with a significant portion of US households owning grills.
It has endured as a popular activity for both summer gatherings and year-round enjoyment, with different regions developing unique styles and traditions.
As such, the US barbecue and grill industry is a large and thriving market, with major players producing a wide range of grills for both home and commercial use.
While this vast industry has seen growth in recent years, factors such as rising food prices and economic uncertainty have also presented some challenges.
Within this competitive field is Evo America (Evo), which was acquired by global foodservice equipment leader Middleby in 2018.
Designed and manufactured in the US, Evo’s commercial cooking equipment is recognized across the world by operators and chefs for its quality craftsmanship and consistent results, built to withstand the demands of high-traffic operations.
With thousands of installations worldwide, utilizing ambition and a driving pursuit of innovation, Evo was founded on a passion for cooking and entertaining and has worked meticulously to become the leader in commercial front-of-house cooking equipment.
“As a US-based cooking equipment manufacturer, it’s our goal to socially connect people around fresh food preparation. Since 2001, we have built a full line of exceptionally energy-efficient gas, electric, indoor, and outdoor commercial and residential equipment,” states President, Scott Heim.
A NEW CULINARY EXPERIENCE
Alongside his role at Evo, in which he is focused on driving new product concepts, Heim is also the President of Middleby Ventless Solutions, where he likewise pursues unique product ideas. Creating new cooking products requires collaboration with chain restaurant leaders and key foodservice operators.
He is also concentrating on educating designers, architects, and customers on a variety of ventless concepts, especially focusing on ways to create pockets of revenue in non-traditional locations and even historical buildings.
More culinary leaders want to evaluate and explore this new foodservice trend; therefore, Heim has become a leading industry authority on ventless commercial kitchens, showcasing the unique food and beverage concepts.
Presenting and exhibiting ventless concepts at tradeshows is one of the best ways to demonstrate how to incorporate high-quality, commercial cooking action stations in non-traditional locations, taking essentially empty and unused spaces and creating new pockets of revenue.
“Our unique circular flattop cooking grills are designed to create a social cooking experience. Evo’s commercial equipment can be found in the corporate kitchens at Google, Apple, Microsoft, Marriott, Hyatt, Sheraton, Ritz Resorts, Benihana, and hundreds of other A-list companies,” he explains.
Across North America, HEB Grocery, Farm Boy, and Whole Foods, among other grocery chains, are purchasing Evo equipment to offer the freshest meal preparation directly to consumers in store.
Creating ventless action stations in the grocery store allows more adventurous retailers the chance to gain market share by selling prepared meals to consumers already in the store. The consumer is engaged and in a receptive frame of mind, seeking lunch and dinner ideas.
“Our unique circular flattop cooking grills are designed to create a social cooking experience”
Scott Heim, President, Evo America and Middleby Ventless Solutions
LAUNCHING THE VENTLESS GRIDDLE
Coming from a background of consumer-packaged goods, it was a chance meeting in Portland, Oregon with Bob Shingler, Founder of Evo, in 2012 that initially attracted Heim to both the company and this specific segment of the food and beverage industry.
Impressed with Evo’s range of circular cooktops for both commercial and residential marketplaces, Heim had an epiphany.
“It was the best of both worlds, merging the science of product technology and the art of culinary science almost equally to create the best possible product to meet customers’ needs,” he recalls fondly.
This combination of art and science led Heim to play a crucial role in Evo launching its signature product, the ventless griddle.
“Because I’m an entrepreneur at heart, I went right to Miami, Florida where Bob and I met with the restaurant chain Benihana and we pitched the idea of a new electronic griddle that could replace gas griddles and overhead ventilation hoods. Sure enough, this brought the whole ventless era to life for Evo,” Heim asserts.
“The overhead hoods in the Benihana sites were noisy and the externally exhausted air systems didn’t do a very good job on cooking odors either.”
After securing patents for the product, and in the wake of Evo’s acquisition by Middleby in late 2018, Heim laid out a strategy for ambitious expansion with the goal of dominating the ventless cooking market segment.
Middleby has leveraged incredible TurboChef technologies, successfully acquired other brands, and created the world’s leading ventless portfolio. In fact, only Middleby can claim that it has successfully installed 415,000 ventless products in restaurants globally over the past 14 years.
ACHIEVING THE VISION
Evo has continued to make great strides since the inception of the ventless griddle.
Indeed, the company has seen its griddles integrated into the facilities of numerous restaurant operators in sports stadiums, concert venues, and airports.
Evo’s ventless griddle helps operators make use of non-traditional sites. Whether it’s a corridor in a stadium or the corner of a hotel ballroom, this technology provides operators the ability to create action stations and cook meals in unconventional spaces.
“These non-traditional locations typically all have incredibly high ceilings, making it difficult to insert Type I hoods with the ducting, flashing, and compressors on the roof to extract the smoke, grease, and smelly odor of the restaurant environment,” Heim elaborates.
“We started to see fabulous success with guidance from the Foodservice Consultant Society International (FCSI), an organisation of professional designers who blend architecture, design, and cooking throughput systems. They helped give me some of the best ideas on how to market our products and build the business,” he tells us.
Across the US, Evo’s ventless griddles can now be found in 79 different stadiums, used in the culinary sections of the concourse areas and even high-profile corporate suite spaces.
Stadium operators can now generate food and beverage revenue on matchdays and select locations based on fan movement and gathering areas, taking advantage of what was essentially dead space and maximising the real estate of a sports or entertainment facility.
“It’s all about positioning your food outlet in the best location to maximize customer interaction, syncing your space to the flow of traffic in these non-traditional spaces.
“The same is true at airports, as the closer you can position your food and beverage business to areas with higher passenger flow, for example near the boarding gate or toilets, the greater your potential customer reach becomes,” Heim adds.
Furthermore, foodservice equipment typically found outside of the kitchen has the potential to turn previously unused spaces into points of profit.
As it relates to some of the most profitable menu items, this can be enhanced with ventless cooking technology such as a ventless flattop griddle.
“We all eat with our eyes, so why not make meal preparation more theatrical by cooking directly in front of the customer?” asks Heim.
A CHANGE IN THE GAME
Countless ventless cooking products are in development, and right now, Middleby is leading the way with innovations that break industry norms.
“The sales growth we experienced from 2013 to 2018 was due to the launch of our ventless cooking stations, adding new points of distribution and product placement in stadiums and arenas,” says Heim.
Ventless cooking is the most effective way to prepare high-profit menu items in otherwise unusable spaces.
On the surface, this potential for profit makes these products cost-effective, but there are even more factors to consider when reviewing the value of a ventless cooktop.
“The cooking process results in grease, making hoods a requirement for commercial kitchens. Because of this, many spaces are often unusable due to the size, shape, and ductwork required – our ventless griddle can change that,” he prides.
Evo’s products also offer clean site lines and cooking transparency. As seen in fast-casual and quick-service restaurants (QSRs) over the last decade or so, the ability for the customer to see and self-select their food is highly desirable.
With Evo’s flattop griddles, operators can provide open visibility and transparency as to what and how food is cooked, which also allows them to promote the ever-important concept of freshness – a trend that continues to dominate the food and beverage industry at present.
“Combining art and science makes this industry interesting, challenging, and magical for me”
Scott Heim, President, Evo America and Middleby Ventless Solutions
ELECTRIFICATION IS COMING
One thing many operators may not know about ventless cooking is that it’s only achieved with electric cooking equipment.
“Simply put, gas-powered equipment cannot be ventless. At the same time, the use of electric cooking equipment is one of the hottest trends in foodservice, and it’s not just a trend – it’s the future,” Heim divulges.
Over the course of the last decade, more and more commercial and residential kitchens in Europe have made the switch from gas to electric, and those numbers are continuing to rise across the continent.
“Here in the US, the use of electric equipment has also started to take hold over the past few years, as trend-setting cities such as Berkley in California are mandating the use of electric cooking equipment over gas,” he explains.
As electrification accelerates exponentially, two areas that can undoubtedly expect to see an increase in frequency because of this are induction cooking and ventless cooking.
Middleby has positioned itself to take full advantage of this trend and promises to continue putting forward innovative and game-changing designs through its signature grill products, the CookTek brand, and other product lines in the portfolio.
“I continue to be excited and driven by advances in technology throughout the food and beverage realm,” Heim gushes.
“Combining art and science makes this industry interesting, challenging, and magical for me,” he finishes joyfully.
EVO AMERICA & MIDDLEBY VENTLESS PARTNER
