LuxInnovation, the national innovation agency, supports companies in their efforts toward greater innovation, digitalisation, and sustainability, with Luxembourg-based company 'Hein' emerging as a notable success story.

In the face of increasing pricing pressure, businesses need to innovate in order to remain competitive. Luxembourg's national innovation agency, LuxInnovation, assists Luxembourgish businesses with this procedure. Hein, a Strassen-based company operating globally, is a noteworthy success story.

Hein focuses on industrial ovens for bakeries however, no baking typically occurs within its premises. Nonetheless, the company made an exception for the Minister of the Economy and fired up one of their demonstration ovens, the Universal Volt. This oven has the potential to revolutionise the baking oven market as it runs on electricity instead of gas or oil. While electric ovens already exist, the Universal Volt uses electricity to heat water, baking bread crispy in the steam. Hein is the only company offering such a system.

The energy efficiency feature of this oven is another noteworthy feature. The oven can, in fact, save up to 30% on energy, which is a major selling factor in the current market. Hein has also created a pellet oven, which is another market innovation.

Despite Hein's ability to build high-quality baking ovens with a global reputation, they lacked the financial means to undertake such a project independently as well as the know-how to determine which subsidies to apply for. LuxInnovation's assistance was essential to the success of this project.

Sasha Baillie, CEO of LuxInnovation, explains that the various national and European support instruments are relatively complex and it can be challenging for companies to navigate them. LuxInnovation advisors are available to guide and assist in this regard.

In 2023, 86 small and medium-sized enterprises participated in one of LuxInnovation's Fit-4 programmes. Despite this, there is still room for improvement, as highlighted during the presentation of the 2023 annual report on Thursday morning. Particularly, businesses in Luxembourg seem a little reluctant to adopt digitalisation and better position themselves for the future.

In response, LuxInnovation aims to innovate within itself. Minister of the Economy Lex Delles announced that LuxInnovation's programmes will be streamlined, and a new programme focusing on artificial intelligence, "Fit 4 Digital AI," will be introduced.

Full report by RTL Télé (in Luxembourgish)