Consumables

When Fresh-Food Counters Disappear

Kaisers Tengelmann, one of Germany’s largest groceries retailers, was faced with the following question: “How can I communicate to my customers that the store is open until 9pm or later, but the cheese, cold meats and meat counters stop serving from 8pm?”

Wednesday 27. May 2009 - Kaisers Tengelmann, one of Germany’s largest groceries retailers, was faced with the following question: "How can I communicate to my customers that the store is open until 9pm or later, but the cheese, cold meats and meat counters stop serving from 8pm?"

Thesing Sonnenschutztechnik and Junkers & Müllers were able to offer the quality provider among German supermarkets a tailor-made solution: from 8pm onwards, all fresh food counters disappear behind digitally printed vertical screens which can be let down on the push of a button or by remote control. The printed images show that these are the chilled, fresh food counters but that there is currently no service. In future, all of the company’s supermarkets will be fitted with these screens, with 2 stores in the Stuttgart area as well as 10 outlets in NRW already fitted.

During the day, the screens disappear into closed boxes that are mounted under the ceiling. The system is based on similar ones for exterior shading but is also perfectly suited to this new application. The digitally printed screen fabric is Mediatex Bermuda – its characteristics making it the ideal choice for the job. Perfect hanging attributes without curling is a mandatory prerequisite – even under changing humidity levels – as the system does not have any guidance tracks on the sides. In addition, the customer insisted on brilliant print colours as well as soil and water resistance.

Jürgen Frentzen is in charge of construction and fit-out at Kaiser Tengelmann and is very satisfied with this solution: “From the very start, I was really impressed by the excellent collaboration between the two companies, the perfectly customised solution, the quality of the screens as


well as the expert implementation of the entire project. Any possible doubts were diminished when Jörg Hippel, the head of the Mediatex department at Junkers & Müllers, poured a glass of Coca Cola over the fabric without leaving a trace.”

Thesing and Junkers & Müllers have known each other for a long time through collaborations in the area of sun screening. Now, they were able to combine this knowledge with that around digital print, fuse system competencies with fabric competencies and develop a customer-oriented solution.