Petr Vaněček (Remoska): We thought we had a strong brand. But people only loved one pot

In this episode of the CEO na ostří nože podcast, we talk to Petr Vaněček, CEO of Remoska. Almost everyone in the Czech Republic knows chicken roasted in a remoska, a cult Czech electric cooking pot, but for sixty years the brand was tied mainly to one product and to an older generation. When new investors came on board, management got a clear brief: turn Remoska into a love brand for kitchen appliances, expand the range and bring the company into the 21st century.

The first new product, however, triggered an unexpected reaction. Customers, mostly over 55, accused the company of “stealing a Czech brand”. To them, Remoska was the name of a cooking pot, not a company brand. Market research then confirmed that what the company had considered a golden egg was a golden egg for just one product. Vaněček takes it in his stride: “I never pretended to be the centre of the universe who knows what customers want.” The goal stayed the same; only the route changed. The company launched the biggest TV campaign in Remoska’s history. It plans to invest up to ten percent of revenue in brand building and to check over several years whether brand perception has shifted. The research also convinced the owners, who had previously been reluctant to fund brand marketing because performance marketing delivered quick results.

A change in strategy could have dampened employees’ enthusiasm, but that didn’t happen at Remoska. The company has around forty people, and most have worked there for more than ten years. For them, Vaněček says, Remoska has long been a love brand. The structure is flat: production and three or four people in management, with no middle management. Anyone can come to the CEO with a problem, and management and the owners explain directly to people where the company is heading. Production in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm is still largely by hand: each piece passes through many hands before it reaches the shelf. Love for the brand helps with hiring too. Candidates often say they have a remoska at home and love it.

The company is now building a new automated plant in Kopřivnice. Thanks to robotics, the same number of people will produce many times more, and the company will be able to compete on price in foreign markets. People won’t lose their jobs, but they will have to retrain from manual work to operating machines. Management has about a year to prepare and is working closely with staff. Anyone unwilling to learn will be replaced by someone who is. Vaněček and his business partner have themselves enrolled in an MBA focused on automation and digitalisation, using their own company as a case study. Technology, he says, is the easier part. The hardest part is always communicating with people and being able to describe requirements precisely to experts, so the company doesn’t end up with an off-the-shelf solution it then has to bend to its needs.

What else will you learn in the podcast?

• Why customers accused Remoska of stealing a Czech brand

• How market research changed the strategy and convinced the owners to invest in the brand

• Why Remoska has long been a love brand for its employees

• How to prepare people from craft production for an automated plant

• Why the CEO went back to school because of factory robotics

• How Remoska broke into the UK thanks to “Lady Remoska”

According to Petr Vaněček, Remoska stayed stuck in its own idea of itself for a long time because, after years of fighting to survive, the company was finally making money and nobody felt the need to change anything. Now it faces a transformation that will take several years. But the people who love it are, in his view, the best foundation to build on.