MEISTER COOK About us
COMPANY
A master of identifying challenges and bridging the gap between ideas and reality, we act as a concept liaison and solution provider.
A master of identifying challenges and bridging the gap between ideas and reality, we act as a concept liaison and solution provider.
Industry Leading Designs and Manufacturing
Since 2006, Meister Cook, LLC has served as a designer and manufacturer of custom foodservice equipment for large restaurant chains, identifying existing challenges, then inventing and designing solutions. Meister Cook serves domestic and international markets and manufactures all products in the United States.
Rapid Growth and Accolades
Meister Cook developed the restaurant industry’s first hot air re-circulating fried food holder. This patented technology extends the crisp and hot hold times for French fries and other fried foods. They followed that innovation with the world’s
fastest bagel toaster and the first patented food holding systems designed for dry and moist foods. Other Meister Cook creations include: a mechanical donut filler, waterfall glazing machines, powerless food thermometers, high speed panini grills, industry revolutionary food packaging systems and inventive teabags with steep timers.
America's Fastest Growing Private Companies
In 2014, Meister Cook was ranked 87 on the Inc. 500 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies. In 2015, Meister Cook built on that growth by improving their ranking to 41 in the country and became the third fastest-growing company in Indiana.
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In 2016, Meister Cook was invited to continue building on their success and enter the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center (NIIC) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The NIIC is a private-public partnership named a Best-Under-the-Radar Business Incubator by Entrepreneur magazine.
LEADERSHIP
Dr. Erik Magner is a revolutionary inventor of unique, high-performance equipment and creator of new product segments in the foodservice industry.
A Tradition of Service and Education
Born in the rural countryside of Northern Germany, Erik Magner served as a highly decorated officer cadet specializing in military intelligence.
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After completing his service, Magner received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and M.S. in Aerospace/Aircraft Engineering and Material Science from the prestigious Braunschweig University. After graduation, he immigrated to the United States and began designing power and air-conditioning systems for a military supplier and manufacturer, eventually receiving his MBA at the University of California at Berkeley. In 2012, Magner acquired his Ph.D. in Global Leadership and Organizational Management from the Indiana Institute of Technology.
Growth Through Hard Work and Initiative
In 1997, Erik Magner entered the foodservice equipment industry. He helped design gas combustion systems, automatic hamburger feeders, and split belt broiling systems for Nieco. During his time at Nieco, Magner also assisted in setting up the company’s global distribution and service support network. Later, Magner was named president of Vent Master for Enodis, one of the industry’s largest equipment conglomerates.
Founding Meister Cook
In 2006, Magner founded Meister Cook, LLC in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Meister Cook has continued Magner’s innovative work, producing many cutting-edge technologies and earning numerous patents. Magner’s leadership has helped Meister Cook become one of the United State’s fastest-growing private companies.
CAPABILITIES
Meister Cook's abilities to design and create are endless. We take your needs, conceptualize the most efficient ideas and make them reality.
Fresh Fries, Fifteen Minutes Later
To maintain product quality, fried foods like French fries are best served to customers within five minutes of removal from the fryer. Due to the pace and logistics of most foodservice operations, this poses problems for management looking to provide the best quality food.
Meister Cook designed a machine to help casual dining restaurants extend the hold time for fried foods, The Fried Food Holder. This open-area holding system allows for easy dumping of French fries and other products, straight from the fryer basket. The self-regulating system keeps food fresh and warm, just like it’s straight out of the fryer, for more than 15 minutes.
Glazed Goodness Everyone Can See
Nothing beats a freshly glazed donut, and one coffee and donut chain wanted its customers to be able to “eat with their eyes” while first viewing the glazing process. To solve that problem, Meister Cook developed The Amazing Glazing Machine, a waterfall glazing machine developed to be attractive to customers while meeting food preparing procedures.
Perfect Bagels, Faster Than Ever Before
A large restaurant chain needed a faster way to make bagels. Their current solution was slowing down service, causing back-ups in the drive-thru lane, and giving customers an excuse to find another restaurant.
Meister Cook solved their problem with a conveyor cooking system that uses a light breeze of hot air to decrease cooking time. Toast times of 45 seconds were improved to 15 seconds, getting bagels out to customers quicker than ever before!
A Flawlessly Filled Donut, Every Time
The electrical machines used to inject jelly into your favorite donuts are less-than-reliable. When those machines break down, there’s a bigger effect than just not getting the donut you want – it slows down the entire operation.
Meister Cook was tasked with building a back-up solution that would allow a coffee and donut chain to keep working even when the big machine went down. The result was a mechanical donut filler, allowing employees to inject the exact amount of jelly needed, switch jelly types easily, clean up quickly, and keep the restaurant moving.
Perfect Food Without the Pressure
Serving dry and crispy foods like breaded chicken, hash browns, and chips is difficult. Traditional food holding systems dry out the food before it gets to the customer, resulting in a subpar product and increased food waste.
Meister Cook set out to solve that problem for a large restaurant chain. The result is the Dry Moist Warmer and Food Holding System, which uses a gentle hot airflow to keep the outside of the food crisp while keeping the product warm. More than 10,000 Dry Moist Warmers have entered the market and Meister Cook received a patent for the invention in 2015.
Safe and Secure Soup Transportation
Transporting soup isn’t easy in the best circumstances, but when you’re trying to transition from the back-of-house prep area to the front-of-house operations, accidents and spills can happen.
Meister Cook wanted to create a solution that met certain criteria and would be secure enough to survive a three-foot drop onto a concrete floor without losing the lid. The result is the Pan & Lid Locking System, a mechanical system with release handle, safety system, and slide slip guard.