In this article you will see:
- How Coreco has evolved over the past 40 years.
- What values have guided their way of working and manufacturing.
- How it relates to distributors, installers and customers.
- What challenges and future horizon does the company see in the professional cold.
In 1985, in Lucena (Cordoba), Coreco was born with a simple idea: to make professional refrigeration equipment that could keep up with the real pace of bars, restaurants and food shops. There were no grand marketing plans or grandiloquent speeches; there was craft, steel, welding, foam insulation and a lot of attention to what customers asked for.
Forty years later, Coreco equipment is present in all kinds of businesses: from small neighbourhood shops to supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, central kitchens and gourmet shops. Many of them live in storage areas and kitchens; others are in front of the customer, displaying products that have become part of the identity of each business.
This 40th anniversary is not experienced as an end point, but as a good moment to stop for a second, look back and wonder: how do you get here by being professionally cold for four decades?
1. From Lucena to the world, without letting go of the factory
Coreco was founded as a family business specialising in professional refrigeration for catering and food. The first equipment was not designed for glossy catalogues, but to solve very specific needs:
- keep goods in good condition,
- maintaining the cold chain,
- and facilitate the work in bars, restaurants, butchers, fishmongers and food shops.
Over time, the brand ceased to be just a thing of the Lucena area and began to appear in other parts of Spain. Later, it crossed borders and reached dozens of countries. It does so gradually, always relying on distributors and installers who recommend the brand because they have tried its equipment before.
Today, Coreco is present in more than 70 countries, but the basis remains the same: a factory in Lucena, a stable team and a way of understanding the business closely linked to the territory and local industry.
2. A way of being: close industry and way of working
More than a slogan, Coreco has a way of understanding the company that has been maintained over time.
The company is built on a few simple ideas: doing things well, taking care of details, listening to the customer and offering a stable working environment where people can develop professionally without giving up their personal lives.
This is the basis for very specific principles:
- Manufacturing in Spain, with its own means and controlling the processes.
- Designing with what really goes on in cabinets, showcases and displays, not only in the data sheet.
- Listening to distributors, installers and users and adjust when something can be improved.
- Caring for the human resources and the environment in which it works.
- Maintain a clear line of quality, useful innovation and environmental responsibility.
These are not empty words: those who visit the factory see plans, steel, automated processes... but also the feeling that this is a project that has been built up over time. little by little, through perseverance.
3. What we have learned after 40 years of cold weather
In four decades, the industry has changed a lot: regulations, gases, energy efficiency, design, digitalisation... But there are three ideas that come up again and again when you talk to the people at Coreco.
3.1. Keeping well is as important as showing well
Professional refrigeration does not only live in the kitchen. A large part of Coreco's work lies in storage chambers, refrigerated cabinets, support furniture and equipment that almost nobody sees but which sustain the quality of the product day in and day out.
Another very important part is face to face:
- display cases,
- refrigerated walls,
- fresh produce displays,
- wine cellars,
- maturing cabinets in view.
In a supermarket, in a gourmet shop or in a restaurant bar, this equipment not only preserves: tell a story. The way they are lit, the way the products are arranged, the glass, the feeling of cleanliness and order... all of this influences the customer's perception.
As a manufacturer of professional refrigeration for the HORECA channel and the food industry, Coreco has been learning to work on both sides of refrigeration:
- the unseen (where every degree and every hour of operation matters),
- and the one that is seen (where, in addition, trust, appetence and the image of the business matter).
3.2. There is no single “professional cold”.”
Forty years ago, the focus was mainly on chambers and service equipment for the classic catering trade. Today the map is much more varied:
- organised catering,
- specialised shops,
- gourmet spaces,
- hotels,
- supermarkets and food chains,
- central kitchens,
- hybrid businesses (shop + tasting + delivery),
- projects where the cold is very present in the room.
This diversity has meant that very different solutions have had to be devised: back-office chambers, showcases with a strong presence in the room, refrigerated wall displays, wine cellars that form part of the interior design., blast chillers that support kitchen production, etc.
The lesson is clear: every type of business has a different way of using cold, and the manufacturer's job is to adapting technology for such use, not the other way around.
4. Growing up without losing one's trade: evolution in stages
Coreco's trajectory can be read almost like a timeline of professional refrigeration in Spain.
4.1. 1980s and 1990s: learning at close quarters
In the early years, Coreco manufactured mainly for the hotel and catering trade and small shops. The relationship with customers is very direct: many improvements are the result of a visit to a chamber, a recurring problem, a display case that could be better preserved or more comfortable to work with.
These are years of learning the trade:
- understand how every detail affects performance,
- improving insulation,
- standardise processes,
- fine-tuning the ranges.
Expansion comes little by little: first more domestic market, then the first steps abroad.
4.2. The 2000s: Laboratory, efficiency and more markets
At the turn of the century, the company strengthened its industrial character:
- launches a in-house testing laboratory,
- measures fuel consumption and performance more accurately,
- and start designing equipment with energy savings as a concrete objective.
At the same time, Coreco is consolidating its international presence. Much of its equipment is beginning to be seen in murals, shop windows and chambers of businesses that are no longer just a few hours away from Lucena, but thousands of kilometres away.
4.3. 2010s: new standards, new refrigerants
The 2010s bring more stringent regulations on efficiency, energy labelling and refrigerants. The entire industry has to adapt; it is not optional.
Coreco is responding by re-engineering ranges, introducing gases with the lowest climate impact and adjusting designs to comply with the directives of Ecodesign and energy efficiency, without losing the robustness that characterises the brand.
These are years in which decisions are taken that are not immediately visible, but that prepare the company for a more regulated and energy-sensitive environment.
4.4. 2018-2025: digitisation and a more connected factory
As a manufacturer of professional refrigeration for the HORECA and food channel, the changes have also been experienced in-house:
- more automated production lines,
- integration of management systems (ERP, traceability, technical documentation),
- monitoring of energy consumption,
- use of 3D design, simulation and 3D printing in prototypes,
- first steps towards a smarter factory, with real-time data and more preventive maintenance.
For the customer, this translates into better controlled teams, with more information available, and the possibility of integrating part of the professional cold in projects where connectivity is becoming part of everyday life.
5. People, equipment and way of working
Behind every camera or showcase there are hands, decisions and a lot of accumulated experience. For Coreco, talking about quality also means talking about how we work inside.
5.1. Craft, continuity and development
At the Lucena factory, people who have been with the company for half a professional life live side by side with others who have just arrived. There are stories of people who started in very basic tasks and today coordinate teams, train new colleagues or participate in improvement projects.
The company is committed to:
- stable employment,
- continuous training in technology, safety and processes,
- internal promotion when the opportunity arises.
It is not meant as an extraordinary merit, but as a sensible way to build an industrial project: to give the team reasons to stay and grow.
5.2. Mixed workforce and work-life balance as a matter of course
If there is one thing we have learned over the last 40 years, it is that stable teams are not only sustained by good products, but also by a reasonable way of working. At the Lucena factory, people from different generations live together, men and women, people who started here very young and today share the line with those who have just joined us.
Over the years, we have been implementing work-life balance measures, adaptations of working hours and flexibility that allow work to fit in with the different stages of life: those who have young children, those who take care of family members or those who are still in training. We don't count this as an achievement, but as something logical if you want people to stay, grow and feel part of the project.
Today the Coreco workforce is clearly mixed, Women are more and more common in offices, production and technical areas. It is increasingly common to see women in manufacturing, engineering, quality, administration, logistics or middle management.
The company has equality and reconciliation policies officially recognised - such as the Andalusian Mark of Excellence in Equality (MAEI) - but what is really valued inside the company is that these policies translate into something concrete: a working environment that combines professional standards with respect for people and their lives outside the factory.
6. Customers, distributors and industry: growing together
If there is one point that is repeated a lot at Coreco when talking about the 40th anniversary, it is the word "40th anniversary". trust.
In these four decades, the company has had the good fortune to work with:
- distributors that bet on the brand when it was not yet so well known,
- installers who have mounted hundreds of cameras, showcases and displays with the Coreco logo on the door,
- end customers - from small businesses to large groups - who have chosen this equipment to store and display their products.
Much of what is now part of the company's ranges comes from that relationship:
- of a service call,
- of a visit to see why an installation works in one way or another,
- from a dealer proposing an adjustment,
- of a shop that needs a different look for its mural or window display.
The company also collaborates with vocational schools and universities, participates in industry associations and is involved in local initiatives. The basic idea is simple: Coreco has not walked alone. It has grown up in an industrial and hospitality ecosystem of which it is a part and to which it tries to contribute responsibly.
7. Looking Ahead: Cold, People and Continuous Change
As a Spanish manufacturer of professional refrigeration for the HORECA channel and the food industry, 40 years is an encouraging anniversary to look back on, but at the Lucena factory the focus is, above all, on what is to come:
- new energy efficiency and sustainability requirements,
- more connectivity and digitisation in cameras, showcases, murals and displays,
- HORECA business models that will continue to change (delivery, retail + tasting, experience spaces, etc.),
- customers who demand equipment that consumes less, conserves better and integrates better into their premises.
Coreco's goal for the next few years is not to reinvent itself every five minutes, but rather to to continue to hone the craft:
- improve the efficiency of conservation and display solutions,
- facilitate the work of distributors and installers,
- nurturing the relationship with those who trust the brand,
- and maintain a working environment where people can continue to say “I've been here for many years... and it pays off”.
8. A 40th anniversary to be celebrated by working
To summarise 40 years of Coreco in a few pages is to leave out many anecdotes, names and projects. But there is one idea that runs through this anniversary from beginning to end:
- It can be done industry from a specific location,
- you can bet on the professional cold as a serious trade,
- you can grow without stopping listening,
- and people can be cared for while cameras, showcases, wine cellars and displays that support the work of thousands of businesses every day are being erected.
Coreco has been in business for 40 years without changing its essence: manufacturing professional refrigeration, preserving and displaying products, accompanying distributors and customers and maintaining a living factory in Lucena.
The best way to celebrate is probably the usual way: to keep working, to adjust what needs to be adjusted and to live up to the trust that so many people have placed in the brand over the past four decades.
As a professional refrigeration manufacturer for the HORECA and food industry we are proud of our contribution to the industry by supporting all initiatives and partnerships that lead to improvements for the entire industry.
