This month Family Eats speaks with Jeffrey Reigle, President & CEO of Regal Ware Worldwide. We discuss the challenges of getting in the kitchen, and what Regal Ware is doing to help get families back in the kitchen and around the table. Sound familiar??
Family Eats: We hear it every day — Cooking is on the decline. With that said, what is the state of the dinner table?
Jeffrey Reigle: Consumers have walked away from the dinner table due to their hectic lifestyles, but it is becoming more and more clear that this transition out of the kitchen is taking its toll. Studies are showing that not eating together around the table results in proven behavioral, social, and health risks – it’s affecting all of us , and there is so much at stake.
FE: As a cookware company, what are you doing to combat that issue?
JR: We are listening to our customers, so we focus on making products to address the challenges we all face when trying to prepare meals for our families. We make our products so that if you grab a fry pan to make eggs or fry meat, or if you need a saucepan to make a quick mac and cheese, or a stockpot to make chili or a stew, you get just what you need to get the best possible outcome in the shortest amount of time. We don’t try to give you more than you need – just the tools that will give you what you want.
And the home cook doesn’t even need to think about it, because we designed each piece in the collection to be the right tool for the cooking task at hand. We are proud to make these tools to address these problems in our own USA manufacturing plants in Kewaskum and West Bend, Wisconsin.
FE: What do you believe to be the challenges consumers have when it comes to cooking at home?
JR: Time is certainly the number one challenge. And although cooking programs are popular on the Food Network and other channels, we are finding that these become more of an entertainment venue and that we are losing the culture of cooking. At the same time, our customers are telling us that they would like to be able to cook more if they could find a way to do so quickly and easily, and with easy clean-up. Each piece in our cookware collection is designed to help the home cook overcome these challenges.
FE: And, what are the elements that you believe to be important in getting families back around the table?
JR: A key element that is important to getting families back around the table is to help them see that cooking doesn’t have to take a lot of time. With the right cooking tools you will get better results. And the right cooking tools will also clean up easily.
FE: Tell us a bit about the new Unity cookware line and how it is unique?
JR: Our customers inspired us to design the Unity by Regal Ware Cornerstone Collection to include just what they need. If you look in a typical home cupboard you are likely to find a set of cookware and then many other pieces of cookware to do a specific job – but it doesn’t match. So we designed one collection of cookware to give you the ability to choose just the pieces you need; the right tools to making cooking more accessible, enjoyable, and efficient for the way you cook – not the way someone else thinks you should cook. You really are designing your own “set” of cookware instead of taking some prepackaged set that someone else thinks is right for you.
And each piece in the collection is designed utilizing the best construction for particular cooking tasks:
For instance, when cooking eggs, meats, or fish you need the heat at the bottom of the pan, so our stainless steel fry pans are specially made with a layer of aluminum encapsulated by a second layer of stainless steel to concentrate the heat at the bottom of the pan where it’s needed most; and we feature a non-PFOA Eco-Satin nonstick surface to make clean-up easy. In most cases, a damp paper towel is all that’s needed.
Similarly, when cooking vegetables or sauces you get the best results when the heat is distributed along the bottom and up the sides of the pan, so we made the stainless steel saucepans of a tri-ply metal that does just that.
These pans also give you the control you need for those times that you’re making mac and cheese, or even homemade candy for a special occasion.
Whether it is soups and stews, eggs and fish, or vegetables or sauces, the new Unity line of cookware helps make getting back in the kitchen and around the table, convenient and satisfying. For more information on the line, visithttp://www.regalware.com
