We spoke with Dr. Nino Hoch about the story behind ROCCA, designing attachments specifically for tiltrotators, and the challenges facing buyers looking for specialised construction equipment.
What originally sparked your interest in specialised construction equipment? Growing up around the Hoch-Gruppe which my parents started in 1995 as a repair and service operation in Steinach in the Black Forest equipment was always close to me. But what really shaped my thinking was watching machines work with the wrong tools. A capable excavator, a well-trained operator, and yet the attachment couldn't follow the movement. The tiltrotator was already there; the attachment wasn't designed for it.
That gap is what led to Rocca. We are not reinventing the bucket we are engineering it from the beginning for the way modern excavators actually move.
What's something about ROCCA's products or way of thinking that you're especially proud of? The system thinking. When we develop a Rocca attachment, we don't start from "what does a standard bucket look like?" We start from the tiltrotator's full range of motion and work backwards.
Geometry, weight distribution, cutting edge geometry, reinforced wear zones everything is calibrated for rotation. We use Hardox materials and high-strength steels because longevity matters on a real jobsite. The claim "Think 360°" is not a marketing phrase for us. It is the actual design brief. And because we run our own rental fleet and service operation, we get honest feedback not survey data.
What do you personally enjoy most about working in this industry? The feedback loop is short. A contractor either calls back to order more or they don't. There's no ambiguity.
What drives me is the moment a customer says the machine used to need five repositions for a certain move and now it needs one or two. That's a real saving fuel, time, wear, operator fatigue. In Germany, tiltrotator adoption is still well below Scandinavia, where it is standard equipment on most excavators. That gap means there is a meaningful conversation still to have, and Rocca is built around exactly that conversation.
What kind of conversations are you having with customers right now? Are their needs changing? The conversation has moved on significantly. A few years ago, many customers were asking whether a tiltrotator made sense at all. Now they have one and they want to get the most out of it.
That is a different, more demanding conversation. A civil contractor asks about cutting edge life in abrasive soil. A landscaper asks how light a grading bucket can be without losing stability. A fleet manager asks about compatibility across different coupler systems. These are specific questions. They suit us well, because our products are built to answer them and we have the service background to follow through.
What challenges do you think operators or buyers face when trying to find the right specialised solutions today? The system complexity is the core issue. Choosing an attachment is no longer just about size and price. A buyer needs to think about the excavator, the quick coupler, the tiltrotator, the weight budget, the geometry, the application and the ground conditions.
Get one of those wrong and even a well-made product underperforms. Most conventional attachments were simply never designed for full rotational movement so operators hit clearance limits or carry unnecessary weight. What we offer at Rocca is not just a product; it is a lineup that was specified around those constraints from day one, combined with the operational background to advise properly.
Many highly specialised companies remain difficult to discover globally. Is that something you recognise from your side as well? Very much. And I think the problem is actually shared it is not just that we are hard to find, it is that the buyer looking for a tiltrotator-optimised attachment in, say, the Netherlands or Poland often has no straightforward way to find what they need either.
The construction equipment market is still heavily relationship-driven. Strong niche products get discovered at trade fairs or through dealer networks, but that reach is limited and slow. For a young brand like Rocca, building relevant visibility not just any visibility is a real strategic priority, and we are deliberate about it.
How does being visible on a platform like Justr help ROCCA connect with the right people and projects? The value is in the context. If a project manager is sourcing attachments for a tiltrotator-equipped fleet and finds Rocca on a platform focused on construction equipment, that is a completely different starting point than a cold search result.
They already know what a tiltrotator is. They are already thinking in systems. That means the first conversation is about geometry and compatibility, not about explaining the concept. For a specialised brand, that context is worth a lot. It shortens the path from first contact to a meaningful dialogue and eventually to a decision.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about where the industry is heading? The convergence of machine control and rotating attachments. When an excavator runs 3D grade control and the bucket can follow an exact profile in a single pass because it tilts and rotates freely the output quality and speed are genuinely different.
That is already the standard in parts of Scandinavia. In Germany and across much of central Europe, it is still becoming normal. Rocca is positioned directly in that transition. We are not a product line waiting for the market to catch up; we are trying to be the attachment that operators reach for when they are ready to work that way.
And finally what's something about this industry that people outside of it probably don't realise? How much precision is involved. People see an excavator and assume it is a blunt instrument, move earth, repeat.
In reality, a skilled operator with the right setup is doing something closer to fine work: controlling angle, depth, force and sequence continuously, often in tight or uneven conditions. The attachment is part of that precision. The wrong geometry or too much weight and the operator is fighting the machine instead of working with it. That is exactly why Rocca exists. Not to be the cheapest attachment on the market, but to be the one that makes the operator's job cleaner and the result more accurate.