How Traulsen transformed Centerline into the trusted C-series brand
Renowned across the US for its commercial refrigeration equipment, Traulsen was founded by entrepreneur Harry Traulsen almost 90 years ago, remaining independent for most of its history. In the early 2000s, it became part of Illinois Tool Works’ Food Equipment Group (IWT FEG), a large US-based multinational company operating across a wide range of segments. Jason Janning, Vice President and General Manager of ITW FEG’s North American Refrigeration division, talks us through Traulsen’s capabilities.
“Our core specialty is point-of-use refrigeration distributed throughout food service operations. Unlike walk-in coolers, where restaurants store large quantities of food in one place, our equipment is dispersed throughout the kitchen, whether that is reach-in upright units, under-counter units or refrigerated prep tables. Roughly a third of our business serves institutional customers such as schools, universities, hospitals and corporate dining operations. Another third is chain restaurants, and the final third is a mix of independent restaurants, specialty applications and retail channels like grocers and mass-market stores,” he begins.
Earlier this year, Traulsen expanded its market reach by rebranding its Centerline™ value line into the Traulsen C-Series, consolidating its mid-tier offering under a single, well-recognized name. “After opening a new facility in Fort Worth, we launched Centerline right into the teeth of the pandemic in 2020, an ill-timed move that nobody could have predicted. We spent the next five and a half years working hard to grow that business before arriving, about a year ago, at a difficult realization: we had a great product, a competitive price and the right value proposition for our dealers, but we simply were not breaking through. What we came to understand was that we were failing to leverage the strength of the Traulsen brand. Customer research confirmed that prompted awareness of the Centerline brand was extremely low, and unprompted recognition was close to zero.
“But when we asked existing Centerline customers about their likelihood to repeat purchase, the score was very high. So we had a product people truly liked, held back by a brand name nobody had heard of, when we already owned one of the most admired names in the category. This led us to leave the Centerline brand and call the product what it really is, a Traulsen C-Series. Since making that change earlier this year, we are starting to see real breakthrough growth in exactly the segments we were targeting, including independent restaurants and smaller operations where that tier of product is more suitable,” Jason elaborates.
Value proposition
The clarification of its brand positioning could not have come at a better moment for Traulsen, as the commercial refrigeration market is under growing pressure from lower-cost entrants. Many companies that come from outside the US and emerging markets are bringing products at much lower price points, with different expectations around product lifetime and performance than the established leaders in the category. The challenge for manufacturers like Traulsen, whose equipment is engineered to perform in demanding institutional kitchens and last for a long time, is that these insurgent products are taking meaningful share at the lower end of the market.
As this becomes a greater threat to the middle and upper reaches of the market, Traulsen is dedicated to supporting and defending its market share without taking it for granted. Its response is built on education and innovation rather than a race to the bottom on price. “Our strategy is to consistently show our customers why Traulsen equipment is worth the upfront investment. That means demonstrating that our equipment solves real pain points, performs reliably in the most demanding environments and lasts a long time with proven up time. However, our route to market runs through our sales force, then to dealers, then to the end user, which means that that message has to travel through multiple layers before it reaches the person making the purchasing decision. Getting that message through persuasively is some of the most important work we are focused on right now in order to counteract this trend of lower cost imported materials,” Jason outlines.
Staying competitive against those newcomers also requires investment in manufacturing efficiency. Traulsen is currently in the middle of a multi-year program to make substantial improvements to its production capability. “In line with our core value of simplification, we have a single production line that makes roughly 20 percent of all our output. Therefore, it is critical that line runs as efficiently and safely as possible, with a short enough cycle time to respond to fluctuating order demand day to day. That line is the focus of a significant ongoing investment to improve all three of those dimensions,” he says.
Investing in automation
Making refrigerators at Traulsen’s scale is not a highly automated process, which means the company is constantly looking for creative ways to improve efficiency, safety and build quality, often drawing directly on the ideas of its team members. On the fabrication side, the company is making additional investments in the automation of its metal shop, which produces all of the bent and cut metal components used in its refrigerators and freezers entirely in-house. About 20 years ago, the company had installed a lot of automation to replace its manual, less safe brake press technology with computer-controlled automated cutters, fenders and punching machines. Some equipment installed at that time has now reached the end of its working life, so Traulsen is replacing those machines on a two-for-one basis. That consolidation frees up floor space in the factory and creates capacity to support further growth, all while bringing the fabrication process up to a higher standard of precision and efficiency.
Traulsen’s decision to leave the Centerline brand and consolidate the line under the well-known name says something important about how the business thinks. Rather than persist with a brand strategy that was not working, the team looked honestly at what the research and data was telling them and acted accordingly, making a clever and effective decision. Obtaining that kind of clarity is harder to achieve than it sounds, particularly when years of investment are involved. Even though the pressure from lower-cost imports is real and not going away, Traulsen’s answer, which encompasses higher quality engineering, better education, and brand trust, is a more durable response than cutting price.
www.traulsen.com
www.itwfoodequipment.com
