An idea from Eltville takes livecookintable® to the jury stage of the Großer Preis des Mittelstandes.
Technology has transformed foodservice. But if ordering, payment, preparation and service all become faster and more automated, where does the human experience go?
AI can help teams plan faster. Automation can make operations more efficient. Digital tools can remove friction from almost every step of a meal. For hospitality operators facing pressure on staffing, space, consistency and cost, much of that progress is not only useful, but necessary.
But efficiency alone does not create an experience guests remember.
Sometimes, the value is in the pause. Watching a chef prepare something. Seeing ingredients become a dish. Asking a question. Smelling something before tasting it. Receiving food from the person who has just made it.
For a moment, the guest is not simply consuming. They are part of the experience.
At livecookintable®, we believe those moments become more valuable, not less, as foodservice becomes increasingly automated. The challenge for our clients is therefore an interesting one: how do you gain the benefits of technology and efficiency without automating away the very experience that differentiates your hospitality?
That question has shaped much of what we build at MEC2 and livecookintable®. And this year, the way we have tried to answer it has taken a company from the vineyards of Eltville to the jury stage of the Großer Preis des Mittelstandes. Of 4,842 nominations nationwide in 2026, only 473 reached this stage.
Creating more freedom for the people delivering hospitality
From our home in Eltville in the Rheingau, we develop infrastructure that gives hospitality teams more freedom to bring food preparation into the spaces where their guests actually are.
Better engineering can make service more flexible. Modular systems allow operators to adapt concepts to different spaces and occasions. Battery technology removes the dependency on a fixed power connection. Digitalisation and AI help us show clients what a solution could look like in their own environment before it is built.
The technology works behind the experience, so our clients can put their guests at the centre of it. For us, that means innovation has to solve practical problems, not simply introduce more technology.
This is why we have invested in an internal design and engineering team. We increasingly control the journey from the first idea to the production drawing, allowing us to respond more directly to what operators tell us they need: more flexibility, smarter use of space and greater freedom in where and how they serve their guests.
Technology should strengthen the people using it
Interestingly, the same principle guides how we run livecookintable®.
As we have introduced AI and digitalisation across the business, we have invested just as deliberately in the people using those tools. Employees receive around 15 training days each year, some development programmes run for up to twelve months, and our team has continued to grow alongside our investment in technology.
Since 2022, our company’s revenue has increased fivefold, but what matters to us is how we have grown: building engineering capabilities in-house, creating new roles, developing people internally and taking an idea born in Germany into hospitality environments around the world.
Why this recognition means something to us
That is also why reaching the jury stage of the Großer Preis des Mittelstandes feels particularly meaningful.
This is not an award centred on one clever product. The juries assess the company as a whole, including its development, innovation and modernisation, jobs and apprenticeships, customer proximity and marketing, and regional and social engagement.
In a way, those criteria lead back to the same question we ask when developing for our clients: Can technology help us do more without losing sight of the people it is ultimately there to serve?
We certainly don’t claim to have the final answer, but we have spent years trying to build one.
This Saturday, 26 September, that journey takes us to Würzburg, where the finalists and award winners for Hessen will be announced. The result remains unknown until the ceremony itself.
We would be lying if we said we weren’t hoping to hear MEC2’s – livecookintable® name, but reaching this point has already given us something valuable: a reason to pause ourselves and realise how far an idea from the vineyards of the Rheingau has travelled.
Because perhaps the future of foodservice isn’t about choosing between people and technology.
It may be about using technology intelligently enough that hospitality teams have more freedom to focus on the people in front of them.
That is the future we want to help our clients build.
Whether you would like to learn more about our products, request a personalized consultation, or are simply curious about the solutions we can develop for you: we are here for you.
Did you enjoy this Blog? Share it with your Network.