The world’s first smart bakery café: Krust Bakery
What comes next after all the smart TVs, smartphones and smart meters? Ireland has officially launched the world’s first smart bakery café, Krüst Bakery, having also premiered the first bitcoin service in Ireland. We have navigated through the innovations with tech enthusiast owners, Robert Kramer and Garret Flower.
The chain’s co-founders wanted to reduce energy consumption and increase customer comfort. They wanted to offer more than just wireless chargers, for example, and went for the complete package: “iPad checkouts with bitcoin support, streaming your own music in the bakery, coffee and sandwich ordering via smartphones to cut waiting times with office deliveries, digital loyalty cards, wireless chargers and many more.”
What’s in a name?
We asked the owners how they define this Irish tech-savvy brand. “Krüst is a play of words in two languages – German and English. Krüste and Crust both refer to the crust of bread. The brand is cool and young. It is a modern concept of a coffee shop and a bakery – merging the best of both worlds,” Kramer told us.
The co-founders share a passion for hi-tech, which is at the core of their business. They believe that technology alone “drives progress, drives culture and improves human behavior. In the bakery business, it increases efficiency and saves energy. The best is that all of our gadgets are fun to use for staff and customers alike,” he explained.
They have incorporated the Industry 4.0 concepts in the smart coffee shop and bakery, as “it is definitely the future. Being connected helps us save energy, improves general daily management and, most importantly, customer comfort,” according to Rob Kramer.
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A tour of the shop’s smart features
As smartphones have become standard, Krüst links into that to improve the buying experience of customers and their well-being during their stay. “You can purchase products via app without having to queue. All it needs is a few taps, going through the checkout and you receive a notification when it is ready for collection. We made your coffee loyalty cards digital so that you never have to lose it like the paper one ever again. You can play your favorite music in the bakery from your Spotify or phone. All you have to do is log onto the bakery’s free Wi-Fi. The bitcoin checkout offers a speedier method of payment. Additionally, it doesn’t matter where you are from, it is transaction free for both us and the customer,” our virtual host explained.
You can read more on Krust Bakery’s profile in the latest issue of our print magazine European Baker (Summer)!