diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index e7fa40f..99efd70 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -23,7 +23,10 @@ RUN conda install -n xmen -c conda-forge nmslib cymem murmurhash -y
 # Install pip dependencies
 RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
 
+# Download the pre-trained models so they are cached in the Docker image
+RUN python download_models.py
+
 EXPOSE 5000
 
 # Define the command to run the server with parameters
-CMD ["conda", "run", "-n", "xmen", "python3", "run_snomed_german_recommender.py", "--no-gpu", "--port", "5000", "index"]
+CMD ["conda", "run", "-n", "xmen", "python3", "run_snomed_german_recommender.py", "--no-gpu", "--port", "5000", "index", "--num_recs", "10"]
diff --git a/download_models.py b/download_models.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5db49fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/download_models.py
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+from xmen.linkers.model_wrapper import Model_Wrapper
+from xmen.linkers import SapBERTLinker
+from transformers import logging as tf_logging
+import logging
+
+logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
+tf_logging.set_verbosity_info()
+
+def download_models():
+    """ Downloads the Hugging Face models required for the project. """
+    Model_Wrapper().load_model(SapBERTLinker.CROSS_LINGUAL, use_cuda=False)
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+
+    download_models()
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/run_snomed_german_recommender.py b/run_snomed_german_recommender.py
index 655c4c2..c933c00 100644
--- a/run_snomed_german_recommender.py
+++ b/run_snomed_german_recommender.py
@@ -14,6 +14,12 @@
 
 from utils import handle_dates
 
+from transformers import logging as tf_logging
+import logging
+
+logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
+tf_logging.set_verbosity_info()
+
 class xMENSNOMEDLinker(Classifier):
     def __init__(self, linker: EntityLinker, top_k = 3):
         self.linker = linker
@@ -48,8 +54,10 @@ def run():
     
     # Suppress InconsistentVersionWarning from TF-IDF vectorizer
     warnings.filterwarnings("ignore", category=InconsistentVersionWarning)
+    print("Loading xMEN SNOMED Linker...", flush=True)
     linker = default_ensemble(args.index_base_path, cuda=args.gpu)
 
+    print("Starting Ariadne server...", flush=True)
     server = Server()
     server.add_classifier("xmen_snomed", xMENSNOMEDLinker(linker, top_k=args.num_recs))