Issue 3, 2015 • EUROPEAN BAKER 36

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, stream-ing 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-sav-vy 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 mod-ern 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, cus-tomer comfort,” according to Rob Kramer.

A TOUR OF THE SHOP’S SMART FEATURESAs 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.They cut energy waste with Google’s Nest Smart Thermostat and meter the energy consumption of all of their equipment through the Internet and smartphones. The coffee machine, lights and heating are all on the minute the staff enter the premises.

NO JUMPING THROUGH THE CABLESThey carefully placed the tech so it does not interfere with the feel and design of a bakery. “The less intrusive, the better. Let’s say wireless chargers, instead of installing a bulky device on top of the table, they were built into the table from underneath. This way, they are invisible but still give the visitors the chance to charge wirelessly. The bit-coin checkout is embedded in our cash checkout, which is an iPad. The jukebox is your phone – you log into the same Wi-Fi and play songs,” said Kramer.Behind the counters, it is all about hi-tech too. They use smart plugs for most of the equipment, which helps to monitor consumption, the patterns in use and adopt energy saving measures. “It is pretty slick when the baris-ta and bakers open the shop and the coffee machine

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.

By Catalina Mihu

Beam me up!The world’s first smart bakery café

ProfileKRUST

and ovens are ready to use. We use cloud-based EPOS systems so that we can analyze buying patterns and improve stockholding.”

TO INFINITY… AND BEYOND!Krüst was Ireland’s first bitcoin bakery and the world’s first smart bakery/coffee shop; they will not stop there: “We also want to have an attempt at breaking a Guinness World Record. The details of that are confidential at the moment [smiles]. And our next cool project is to become the bakery that sends the first cronut into space! It is an ambitious project and we want to live-stream it to the world via Periscope and YouTube! However, our most ambitious plan is our space program. It is nearly impos-sible to take bakery products into space as the crumbs could damage the electronics in zero gravity. We want to find a solution to that,” Kramer revealed.They are organizing events to interact with their cus-tomers, which they plan to host monthly in the future. Some of their latest events had special themes such as the “National Donut Day”. This was especially represent-ative for the future creators of the “space cronut” and was an all-you-can-eat donut day. Meanwhile, the “Krust Equality Party!” celebrated what they stand for: progress. “We like to push boundaries in tech and society,” the owner commented.

A SOCIAL BAKERY-CAFÉKrüst’s typical customers are young professionals, stu-dents and anyone who likes new experiences, according to the owners: “Young people are more likely to try and adopt new tech, like the digital loyalty cards, which are handy as you don’t have to go through your wallet to look for the old school paper one. And if they download our app, it enables us to communicate with them through push notifications on things like upcoming events, special offers, etc.They keep connected with customers via social media, as this is the best and only free tool for a new business with no advertising funds. They post events and publish photos of staff and customers who enjoy being able to tag and share or ask questions.

Their team is made up of three divisions: wholesale (the biggest group, with 600 clients throughout Ireland), retail (for their two sites in Dublin) and catering (the newest and fastest growing division, with between five and eight new customers weekly).

WHAT’S ON THE MENU?While Krüst serves a wide range of bread, donuts, lye bakery, pizza, pastry and sweets, it is the cronuts that are in the highest demand. “We have introduced a variety of flavored breads in Ireland like the roast onion baguette, a ciabatta with soft cheese and chillies, and rye sourdough. All of our products only contain natural ingredients, no GMOs or transfatty acids. The cost of our products is higher than the industry average but it is the price that you have to pay for quality ingredients.The innovation “menu” is also still under development: “We have just started! Fingerprint payments and drone deliveries are next!” they announced.One review from the bakery-café’s Facebook page sums up the general feedback of how consumers feel about it – repeated exclamation marks included: “I got the best doughnut in years, guys were providing top customer service and while I waited for my freshly baked bread, I felt treated as a king! I am surely coming back!!!” posted a user in April, 2014.

Garret Flower and Robert Kramer plan more hi-tech bakery projects.