Pioneers of dispenser technology, Lumen GmbH

History of the company

In 1958 the Ruckdeschel family, owners of the IREKS GmbH from Kulmbach, first imported soft ice cream machines from America to Germany. Only a few years later in 1962, LUMEN GmbH was founded as a subsidiary of IREKS and the further development of soft ice cream machines took its course. This was the beginning of a corporate success story.

Lumen Staff

LUNA dispensers are the result of superior engineering skills

Right from the very beginning, LUNA soft ice cream machines were characterised by the fact that fresh, top quality soft ice cream could be produced in perfect hygienic conditions. Today this is still the case thanks to pasteurisation in the ice cream machine. LUNA soft ice cream machines are the result of excellent engineering skills and food technology.

Ongoing innovations have led us to advanced technology

We have continuously enhanced our technology over the years and have further developed it with numerous patents. Apart from the soft ice cream machines, milk shake machines also belong to our product portfolio today. These too are developed and produced by us. We are pleased to be able to say today that LUNA technology has made it possible for us to firmly establish ourselves in the market with our successful high-quality branded soft ice cream and milk shake products.

LUNA is the top-level brand in terms of technology. It meets the highest of quality requirements, as it is strictly focused on meeting the wishes and requirements of customers.

LUMEN ice cream technology is certified acc. to DIN EN ISO 9001: 2008

Furthermore at a very early stage we began to subject the management system of our company to a certification process in accordance with the relevant DIN EN ISO standard: Thus even in 1996 our quality management system was already aligned to the then applicable standard DIN EN ISO 9001 and certified accordingly. Since then it has always been possible to completely meet the current, relevant standard DIN EN ISO 9001 without any problems at the prescribed inspection intervals.

Constant quality checks – highest degree of reliability for our customers

Standards are also constantly being further developed and optimised. To keep up-to-date we have at an early stage changed over to the amended version of the existing standard, DIN EN ISO 9001:2008. We successfully passed the 2009 audit.

Why your own yogurt brand beats a yogurt franchise

In summary, starting your own yogurt brand will allow you to:

- Use yogurt dispensers with 30%-70% more efficiency for the same money
- Using efficient yogurt dispensers will decrease your food cost by 25%-50%!
- Using more efficient equipment and premixes will allow you to gain market share on price
- Using the right premix will extend your cleaning cycles by up to 3-20 times!
- Give you the option to venture into exciting complementary products

This is what frozen yogurt franshisors do not want you to find out! For more details on this subject please read the full article below.

The details

Let me start by asking you a question: Would you sell more frozen yogurt servings selling at S$3.- or at S$2.- all other things remaining equal?

A frozen yogurt franchise arrangement for a store usually comes with an array of commitments which basically sets you up for unnecessarily high fixed and variable cost run-rates. Leaving you simply defenseless against a smart non-franchisee competitor!

A frozen yogurt franchisor needs to make money too so your prescribed equipment, like yogurt dispensers, will require an investment at an inflated price to provide your franchisor with a healthy margin. To make matters worse these dispensers tend to be the basic gravity fit type producing very little over-run (% of air in the end product). In the worst case you are to invest in multiple dispensers of which most will sell only single digit percentages of your total sales. With competing dispensers able to produce 30%-70% more over run you will be at a significant cost disadvantage for a long time to come. But since the yoghurt franchisors make money on the mix too they are more than happy with your high mix consumption. With your own branded store you can get a much better dispenser which immediately adds 25%-45% of saved mix costs back to your bottom line.

The obligatory franchise yogurt mix is generally the powder type which you have to mix inside your franchise store with 30 degree Celsius tab water. The end result is a mix with a shelf life of one or two days which will A) be inconsistent as every staff member will mix differently and B) ensure you have to flush, disassemble, clean, re-assemble and sterilize your dispenser at least every other day! Compare this with never having make your mix nor disassemble your dispensers ever.

So what is the smart alternative? Using our ready to use premix in combination with one or more LUNA dispensers will give you many weeks of shelf life, only simple external cleaning work and free preventive maintenance. These benefits quickly translate into big savings in mix costs, staff costs, more effective sales time and a much better impact draw capacity.

The bottom line is that with your own branded store you can either make a lot more profit doing exactly what the franchise stores are doing or even better, you can gain market share from the franchise stores by launching next door with a quality product selling at a much lower price!

If you want to know more feel free to get in touch with us.