360º innovation: management of people, suppliers, infrastructure and facilities is the key to the success of El Celler de Can Roca. These are the highlights of the discussion between the chef Joan Roca and the General Director of Institut Cerdà, Carles Cabrera, which took place at the CTecno Forum. CTecno is effectively a great think tank event stimulating debate on a wide range of subjects ranging from evolution and challenges of innovation to how best to implement technological change for the benefit of society.
According to Joan Roca, El Celler has always given great importance to its roots without forgetting the avant-garde and innovation. It has maintained the family spirit and always acquires high quality products to offer its clients. It is high-level cuisine that, never renouncing tradition, is committed to being ambitious, demanding, to constantly evolving and to embracing technology.
Listening and interacting is essential in El Celler de Can Roca. Discussion helps not only to manage and resolve conflicts but also to exploit them beneficially. It is essential to take care of the team of people who come from many different places and yet become a family. This provides diversity and multiculturalism that translates into innovation and creativity. One of the changes El Celler has made lately, and that has become a revolution in haute cuisine, has been to double up the teams so as to improve the reconciliation of the family and working lives of the staff.
As for suppliers, it is important to be demanding, but it is even more important to give them a return in terms of making them more competitive. It is significant that the restaurant can create an economic network of considerable importance in the local area given that 85% of the ingredients that enter El Celler are sourced from within a radius of less than 50 kilometres.
Another key aspect in innovation is the internal communication between teams and, obviously, with suppliers and customers: putting them in the centre, establishing dialogues that allow us to evolve, rethink things and improve. Each year more than 12,000 hours are spent on research and innovation, generating more than 50 ideas that can lead to the creation of new dishes.
This discussion was followed by a round table discussion on “Digital natives: disruptive businesses” and finally by another on “Challenges and opportunities of digital transformation”.
