Digital butchers go on a truffle hunt

Kulmbach, September 2018: The meat industry is in the midst of its biggest upheaval to date: Digitization poses challenges for all butchers - from small businesses to chain stores - but at the same time offers them new opportunities. The Truffle Hunting Digital Lab helps butchers steer their operations into the digital future.

The truffle hunt Digital Lab wasn't even quite over when Max Beck had already implemented the first suggestion. "I sat down for maybe ten minutes," says the 24-year-old master butcher from northern Hesse, "and registered our business with various online directories." -Search immediately brought it further up,” says Max Beck.

For Jochen Bohnert, on the other hand, it is his social media channels that have been given a breath of fresh air by the truffle hunt Digital Lab. "The problem with us butchers is always that we simply don't have the time to do it," says the master butcher from Oberkirch in Baden. But since taking part in the three-day seminar, he has kept a calendar with which he can plan his activities on Facebook, Instagram and Co. in advance. "It makes it easier for me to integrate this work into everyday life."

It is precisely these concrete recommendations for your own business that make the Truffle Hunting Digital Lab so valuable for the participants. Around 25 butchers, farmers and entrepreneurs from the meat industry came to Berlin for the first edition of the three-day workshop. The event was organized by the Adalbert-Raps-Foundation, whose board member Frank Kühne emphasizes: "The truffle hunt Digital Lab is about developing an individual digital strategy for each participant's business." The focus is on the topics of social media, online Marketing and Ecommerce. "Digitization has already fully embraced the butcher's trade," Frank Kühne is convinced. “We will have seen butchers on the market for the longest time who are not changing now.” Digitization not only poses challenges for companies, but also opportunities. The Truffle Hunting Digital Lab provides numerous suggestions on how you can use them. "The butchers don't go home with a thick folder full of papers and a buzzing head," says Frank Kühne. "Instead, they receive very specific, adapted action steps for their company."

These can then be implemented without much effort - and have already been successful in many places, as Sven Giebler, one of the speakers at the Truffle Hunting Digital Lab, observed: "I've been following the Facebook and Instagram profiles of our participants since the event," says the digital expert. "And it's very clear that they went about their implementation directly, creatively and efficiently." Like Katja Dallmann, for example, who runs a farm shop and butcher's shop with her family in Eußenheim, Bavaria. Almost 2.500 people follow her "Elvira's farm shop" on Facebook, but she was only sporadically active on Instagram - until she went truffle hunting. There she "got the impetus to get more involved with this platform," says Katja Dallmann. Since then, she has not only been in lively contact with her customers on Facebook, she also posts diligently on Instagram. "Before that, I wasn't quite sure how hashtags work, how stories are told on Instagram and what content works well there," says Katja Dallmann. "But now I've noticed what an exciting platform it is that you can use to reach young people in particular."

At least as valuable as the lectures and the subsequent practical exercises was the exchange among the participants. "You network and stay in touch afterwards," says master butcher Max Beck. And his truffle-hunting colleague Katja Dallmann sums it up: "It's almost inevitable that over time you'll become a little blind. This is one of the reasons why you learn so much when you exchange ideas with colleagues at an event like this. It was definitely not the last truffle hunt for me.”

Due to the great demand at the premiere, the Adalbert Raps Foundation is offering a second edition of the Truffle Hunting Digital Lab: From November 11th to 13th, innovative butchers, farmers and young entrepreneurs from the meat industry will come together in Frankfurt am Main to get to know the To deal with the challenges and opportunities of digitization and to develop concrete strategies for their operations. In addition, the Adalbert Raps Foundation is inviting all previous truffle hunters and those interested to a meetup on October 21 as part of the leading trade fair SÜFFA in Stuttgart. Further information on both events can be found on the website www.trueffeljagd.org.

About the Adalbert Raps Foundation
Founded in 1976 by the estate of the pharmacist and visionary industrialist Adalbert Raps, the Kulmbacher Foundation has been committed to social projects and research in the food industry for almost 40 years. The Adalbert Raps Foundation is a silent partner in RAPS GmbH & Co. KG.