Chefs Culinar: an experience center that leaves you hungry for more
Nijmegen-based foodservice wholesaler Chefs Culinar supports hospitality professionals so they can do what they do best: cook, create, and surprise their guests. To bring that story to life, we built an experience center together where guests feel exactly that the moment they walk in.
Experience center
Digital content
Audiovisual technology
Concept as the foundation
From brand identity to complete customer journey
Together with Chefs Culinar, we developed the entire customer journey. Alongside interior partner Beijer-advies, we shaped an environment where audiovisual technology, interior design, and a gastronomic setting flow into one another. Five years on, the center is still the culinary heart of the company, every single day.
To tell one consistent visual story, we created a dedicated brand guide for the experience center. We took their existing brand identity as a starting point and built an extension on top of it: from colour palette and patterns to photography. Everything breathes the same story. The team operates the experience center through an app and updates content themselves via the CMS. Fully autonomous, with no external support required.
No explanations, pure experience
Shoulder to shoulder with hospitality
Chefs Culinar wanted to show that they stand alongside hospitality professionals. Not in front, not behind. The center has one job: to let guests experience what Chefs Culinar means for them. No explanations, pure experience. Many visitors arrive as guests and leave as clients.
Music before the front door
A welcome that starts before you step inside
Music greets guests before they even reach the door. You know straight away: this is the right place. On arrival, guests are welcomed in person. Behind the reception desk sit three stretched displays, with content that shifts to match the time of day.
From videowall to life-size introduction
The fresh produce specialists tell their own story
In the lounge, a videowall delivers the first impression of Chefs Culinar. From there, the tour continues to a life-size portrait display, where guests meet the fresh produce specialists at full scale.
Inform, activate, intrigue
An interactive fresh produce experience
This is where it becomes tangible. At the Place & Learn installation, guests explore the origins of fresh: where it comes from, and how Chefs Culinar works with fresh products. Next to the display sit physical objects: a globe (origin), a tree (seasons), a fish, a cow, an apple, each fitted with sensors that trigger the display the moment you set them down. Audio brings the visuals to life. As the content plays, you hear cows moving through the entire space.
In the middle of the room, a touch display sits integrated into a table. Guests browse the webshop and the full assortment from here. The space will soon be expanded with additional product information and videos that play from the touch table onto the wall display.
An experience center isn’t complete without surprises, and Chefs Inspiration has plenty in store for its guests.
Tasting with your eyes
Live from the open kitchen
The Chefs Table is the heart of the center. A large, imposing kitchen where chefs watch, taste, and gather inspiration from Chefs Culinar’s culinary advisor and head chef. A display on the wall serves up inspiration of its own: seasonal ingredients, menu ideas, and wine pairings.
A window, a vineyard, a bird
From vineyard to wine list
From the Chefs Table, you step into the Vineyard. This is where wines are selected, wine lists are built, and tastings take place. As its default screensaver, the display shows an open window looking out over a vineyard. A small bird sits on the windowsill, and you can hear it too. Subtle, carrying through the entire space.
From guest to customer
The journey complete
Anyone who wants to dive deeper into the logistical and operational side of Chefs Culinar can continue further along the route. There, everything that normally stays behind the scenes comes into view. The journey ends in the Chefs Sky, a space set apart from the tour. This is where conversations carry on and partnerships take shape.
RESPONSE WITHIN ONE WORKING DAY
Stimulate every sense with an experience center?
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Patrick
Senior Account Manager