Hans Simillion
CTO
10 locations & growing
Fresh smoothies & smart vending machines
Product development, Procurement, Inventory, Sales Analytics
Alberts® is on a mission. The company aims to market healthy food in an accessible and affordable way. Healthy food choices should also be easy choices.
That’s where the vending machines come in. The machines produce on the spot healthy and personalised smoothies with fresh ingredients — at work, at school or on the go. Everything is managed by food robotics and artificial intelligence.
Chief Technology Officer Hans Simillion:
“Cutting-edge technology allows us to automate processes such as recipe management, inventory management and procurement. Thanks to the easy integration options, choosing Apicbase was an easy choice. By linking to the Apicbase platform, we were able to integrate these applications out-of-the-box.”
Alberts’ customers compose their own smoothies through an app. These are then prepared on the spot by the vending machine. A feat of technical ingenuity, lead by Alberts around the world. To get everything running smoothly, Hans and his team first had to solve some major challenges in the backend.
Hans Simillion: “We need to be able to monitor and automate the entire operational flow — sales, stock depletion and purchase orders.”
The following challenges had to be solved.
To solve these issues, Alberts initially developed the backend software themselves. This included the minimum to get the vending machines operational. Recipes could be managed, but ingredient procurement and inventory management were done manually. “Developing a platform is not our core business,” Hans explains. ” Besides, there are significant costs associated with each update.”
For Alberts, the emphasis lies on the vending machines and the app that allows customers to create their own smoothies. Simillion: “By integrating with existing systems, we can add value to our solution without additional (and expensive) software development.”
Alberts manages the entire logistical flow in the Apicbase f&b management platform, as well as monitoring the sales of the individual vending machines.
Hans Simillion: “Apicbase offers a solution for every challenge. Everything we need is included in the system by default. This has allowed us to grow much faster. Nothing new had to be developed.”
Hans Simillion was introduced to Apicbase through a research project on healthy food at the KULeuven. “I immediately realized that Apicbase is a thoroughly developed system. For example, the recipe management interface has a very clever design. Later on, when I was looking for a backend solution for our vending machins, I tested similar systems, but none came close to Apicbase.”
“The support is awesome. Both for the very technical stuff, like the API connection, and the general follow-up”, Hans says. “Even very specific requests are taken up immediately. Even if it means they have to develop something new. The reasoning at Apicbase is: if an addition makes sense, then it will make the platform better for all customers. Such a customer-driven business attitude is wonderful.”
Alberts has automated the recipe development and supply chain loop by deploying four off-the-shelve Apicbase modules and the API.
Connect everything. Our API endpoints make it easy to share lots of data in a complex IT architecture.
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