Cooking Without Compromise

Most companies can point to a business plan. Martin points to a frying pan. Years ago, he and his wife Kerstin owned a coated pan, and no matter how carefully they used it, flakes of the coating kept ending up in their food. “I said to myself, surely you can do this better,” he recalls. That small domestic irritation is, more or less, the origin of a Munich manufacturer that now ships rice cookers, steamers, air fryers, blenders, espresso machines and pizza ovens across Europe — all built around a single idea: what a good kitchen appliance leaves out matters as much as what it does.

A rice cooker, and a plane ticket

The path there was not planned. Martin was working for a Japanese corporation that carried kitchen appliances in its range, and he was quietly fascinated by them — particularly one rice cooker. When the company stopped producing it, he simply asked where it had been made. The manufacturer’s address, it turned out, was abroad. A week later he was on a plane.

“I went in completely wide-eyed,” he says. “I basically showed up and said, ‘Right, I want to make rice cookers here — what do I need to do?’” He had, by his own account, no real idea how any of it worked. What he had was a conviction that the product could be better, and a partner at home to build it with.

I went in completely wide-eyed. I basically showed up and said: right, I want to make rice cookers here — what do I need to do?

Martin, Founder, KeMar Kitchenware

The company was founded in 2009. By 2013 and 2014, Martin and Kerstin had moved fully into kitchen appliances, and what began with rice cookers widened over time into multicookers, then blenders, then a range broad enough to include hand blenders, steamers, air fryers, espresso machines and pizza ovens. “It has grown, over the years,” Martin says, with the understatement of someone who did not expect any of it.

Kerstin and Martin

The name gives the structure away. KeMar is Kerstin and Martin — the founders decided early, over the fact that most well-known companies are built on family names, to make theirs one too. It is a family business in the most literal sense, and both founders describe that as the point rather than a footnote.

For Martin, it means the products come out of real life rather than a spreadsheet. “We cook, we try all the appliances at home, we test them for a long time before they go to market,” he says. “We talk it through in the evening over dinner — did that work well, did that work less well, how could we improve it?” Short paths, real kitchens, honest verdicts from the people who will put their own name on the box.

The division of labour is clear, and Martin describes it with a grin. “My wife is the boss, of course — we’re equal partners, of course.” Kerstin runs the administrative side and the office, and feeds in the improvement ideas; Martin handles purchasing, sales, marketing and the negotiations. Kerstin frames the family setup in terms of freedom. “You feel comfortable in what you do,” she says. “You discuss things much more relaxed than you would working somewhere else.”

We cook, we try all the appliances at home, we test them for a long time before they go to market. We talk it through in the evening over dinner.

Martin, Founder, KeMar Kitchenware

What they leave out

The rice cooker that started it was made of iron and stainless steel, with no coating — a deliberate answer to that first annoyance with the pan. It was a risk. “We didn’t know whether people would like it,” Martin says. They did, and the response set the direction for everything since. Today KeMar specialises in appliances designed to keep additives out of the food: a glass air fryer, a steamer made entirely of stainless steel, rice cookers with stainless-steel pots, multicookers with full-ceramic pots.

That choice is expensive on purpose. Rather than pressed aluminium, KeMar casts stainless-steel pots, which means paying for moulds before a single unit ships. “We’re happy to accept that if we believe it delivers greater value for our customers,” Martin says. He is blunt about why quality is non-negotiable for a business their size: “As a family business, we live on good reviews. If we repeatedly put poor quality on the market, word gets around quickly — and that would be fatal for us.”

There is a conviction underneath the engineering, and Martin traces it to a specific moment. On holiday in Asia, swimming in the sea, he found plastic drifting all around him. “It shocked me so much that I said: this can’t be right, that industrial nations produce this much plastic and microplastic, and it ends up in the ocean.” KeMar decided early to leave out PFOA and BPA and to design out as much plastic as possible — down to details customers rarely notice, like recycled cartons, minimal styrofoam and oil-free printing so the packaging can still be cleanly recycled.

On holiday in Asia I was in the sea, and there was plastic drifting everywhere. It shocked me so much that I said: this can’t be right.

Martin, Founder, KeMar Kitchenware

Giving time back

KeMar’s promise to customers is, in its own words, about giving people valuable time back. Martin explains it plainly: with a rice cooker, you don’t stand at the stove. “You put the rice in, press a button, and in the meantime you can look after your family or take the dog for a walk.” The multicookers, air fryers and steamers are built as multifunction devices that fit into a small kitchen — a deliberate answer, Kerstin notes, to a world of single households, students and small apartments where space is scarce and rents are high.

The pull, for both founders, is getting people back into the kitchen together. Martin talks about creating moments where people sit down, talk, and let the appliance work in the background until it beeps. Kerstin, who describes herself simply — “I love cooking” — says what worries her is how many people no longer cook at home at all.

Something is lost when people no longer cook together — the sense of community, the conversation, preparing something with joy, side by side.

Kerstin, Co-Founder, KeMar Kitchenware

The customers, meanwhile, keep surprising them: 18-year-old students at one end, and people of 70 and 80 who call to say they always wanted appliances without harmful substances in them.

The financial side

The same instinct that shaped the products — keep what works, cut what gets in the way — is how Martin describes managing the company’s money. KeMar had been with a long-established provider whose structures, he felt, had stopped keeping pace. “It was all very conservative and inflexible,” he says. “You had the feeling there was no real support anymore.” Searching online, he came across Vivid, talked it over with Kerstin, and opened a business account — by video verification — within about an hour.

What sold him was speed and clarity. For a business that produces abroad and pays suppliers daily, the practical features matter: KeMar leans on international payments with built-in currency exchange for its US-dollar invoices, and uses Cashback on the food and supplies it buys in volume. The company has also tested Vivid’s AI capabilities, which Martin rates highly and notes most providers don’t offer at all.

It’s clear, well structured and simple to use. As an entrepreneur that matters, because I don’t have time to wrestle with software for hours.

Martin, Founder, KeMar Kitchenware

He is candid where it counts, which is what gives the endorsement weight. The one problem he can recall was his own doing — a wrong account number — and it was resolved fast. Pressed on what could be better, he points to faster direct settlement with local institutions for the company’s heavy payment traffic in China, while acknowledging that much of that sits in processes beyond any one provider. Otherwise, he says, the strongest thing he can say for Vivid is that it rarely gives him a problem to solve.

Back in the kitchen, the appliances hum in the background and eventually beep, and someone sits down to eat. That, in the end, is what Martin and Kerstin say they are building for — a little less time spent watching the stove, and a little more spent at the table.

Disclaimer: This article reflects the individual experience of a Vivid customer and is provided for general information only. It is not legal, financial, investment or tax advice, and is not a guarantee of future results. Product availability, features, rates and conditions depend on your plan and may change. Information is current as of July 2026. Please seek qualified professional advice for your specific situation.