From IT tech to traditional and healthy food business

However, in 2013, three years after the first meeting in Bali, the woman was available, and they started chatting and talking on the phone. The woman’s name was Stani and she lived in Mallorca. Stani agreed to have a coffee in Mallorca, and Hannes was ready to fly over. As the departure date grew closer, Hannes managed to negotiate a meeting for the entire day. Once he arrived here, it was clear that there was some magic going on and the day turned in to four.

Stani who had a long career in hospitality in some of the finest hotels on the island, welcomed Hannes to the island, and they lived in Campos for a year. As the contracts on the island were somewhat limited the possibility arose to go to Sweden and Stani wanted to try a Swedish winter. Hannes tried to explain how dark and cold Sweden was during most of the year, but Stani said, being Austrian, she was not afraid of winter. At the beginning of 2015, they drove their little Renault Clio up to the south of Sweden to live there.

After four weeks with a total of four hours of sun, reality struck them and Stani was crying: “Where is the sun, I haven’t seen the sun since we left Mallorca,” so they decided to give Mallorca another try. This time they found a place to live in Algaida. They wanted to run their own business and Hannes started his Spanish-based IT consulting company. From early on, Hannes managed to distribute projects, with deliveries from offshore resources in India and central Europe. To bridge the cultural gap between the different resources has always been an important part of Hannes’ work.

From 2015, his works has been focused on improving and replacing IT solutions in many different countries all over the world. The work is very varied and challenging and Hannes likes to work with people a from vastly different cultures all at the same time. This week for example, he has worked with people based in Canada, USA, Korea, Japan and Poland just to mention a few.

Hannes has been very fortunate that his employer in Sweden and several Swedish clients have allowed him to work from his home in Algaida.

The couple are both foodies and love trying different types of cuisines and restaurants and early on in their relationship they talked about starting a food business together but not a restaurant.

The possibility came up just after lockdown when a little take-away food place came up on the market in the centre of the village of Algaida. Hannes and Stani bought the place. The first few months were challenging, but now they have come up with a concept well accepted by two main groups of clients, the traditional and the healthy. The shop can provide for both. “Yes, we do have typical Mallorcan take away food such as paellas and pica pica and we also offer vegan and gluten-free dishes every day. New for this spring is that we offer frozen dinners, here you can come in and stock up, buy as many portions as you wish and fill your freezer with healthy homecooked food. We have had requests from busy families that want alternatives to fast food and people who are too busy to cook healthy food during weekdays, others simply do not want to cook at all and with this option you can get a variety at an affordable price.” So as a fellow Swede I had to ask Hannes, will you have Swedish meatballs on the menu? He laughs and says “We have had meatballs on the menu already and the clients really loved them.”

We wish the couple great success with the business. https://www.instagram.com/cuina.ivins/