Essential Commercial Kitchen Equipment:
A Comprehensive Guide for Foodservice Startups
The Starting Point for Commercial Kitchen Equipment
Starting a foodservice business can be a bit daunting…
There’s your physical location to consider along with any remodeling objectives.
Employees…
Insurance…
Food suppliers…
And Equipment…among other issues.
In the world of foodservice, selecting the right equipment for your commercial operation can be a make-or-break process.
The right equipment affects everything in your foodservice process, from the quality of the food you output to the overall efficiency of the kitchen itself.
In this comprehensive guide, we break down some of the most essential pieces of equipment in the world of foodservice and material handling.
It is designed to help foodservice startups navigate some of the complexities of equipping a commercial kitchen with quality equipment to help make your new operation in the foodservice world a success.
We also outline some of the most popular pieces of equipment that foodservice operators find valuable, from our collection of standard sized to customized foodservice equipment here at Channel Manufacturing.
We hope that this information helps you on your journey as you start, or expand, your commercial foodservice business to help it run smoothly and successfully.
Understanding the needs of your unique foodservice business
Before jumping right into specific commercial kitchen equipment, it’s important to understand your business’s unique needs.
The starting point of this is knowing exactly what your business does, who your ideal customer is, and how you will fulfill your customers while keeping them happy.
This depends on the nature of your foodservice business.
Are you a quick serve location?
A fine dining restaurant?
A food truck?
Or, maybe a commercial food fulfillment center?
Each business type and style within the world of foodservice will have its unique requirements and needs based on its clientele, menus, service style, and overall business volume.
Understanding your kitchen’s unique needs will give you a head start on the planning necessary to fulfill all of the commercial kitchen equipment requirements at your location.
Kitchen and Location Layout & Design Considerations
The next factor to consider before diving into your essential kitchen equipment deals with the unique advantages and limitations of your physical location.
Unless you are starting a franchise with very specific guidelines for the location’s kitchen layout and process, chances are you are most likely working within an existing space that needs some TLC to get right for your business.
A well-thought-out and effective kitchen is the cornerstone of any efficient commercial kitchen.
Making sure that there is ample space and a logical flow to and from coordinated workstations within the kitchen can help your employees deliver your food faster and with higher quality. Something that your customers will greatly appreciate.
Considering how your kitchen flows from the receiving areas to storage, prep stations, cooking lines, and into the serving area will help you better understand the essential commercial kitchen equipment necessary to keep your foodservice business flowing smoothly.
In addition to streamlining the workflow of your kitchen, it’s also important to consider issues related to employee and customer safety, ergonomics, and any local health restrictions and codes that should be the baseline for the development of your unique location.
Understanding the Categories of Essential Kitchen Equipment
Commercial Kitchen Equipment can be broken down into several key components or categories.
Each category serves its unique purpose in a commercial kitchen, and depending on the application of your kitchen, some items may not be necessary to ensure smooth operation.
A breakdown of critical categories of commercial kitchen equipment includes:
Cooking & Baking Equipment:
As is probably pretty obvious, cooking equipment is the backbone of any commercial kitchen.
These machines prepare the food going out to your customers and help to define your overall kitchen efficiency.
Some of the types of cooking equipment to consider include:
Ventilation and Exhaust Hoods: While choosing the right cooking is vital for a successful commercial kitchen, as is the need to select a properly sized and balanced hood system to be sure your airflow, both exhaust and return air, is properly balanced for the size of your kitchen and the equipment in your kitchen.
Ovens & Ranges: The primary tool of any commercial kitchen, ovens, and ranges are available in a multitude of sizes, configurations and available features. It’s important to consider the different cooking applications that will occur in your kitchen, as well as whether you need electric, standard or convection capabilities.
Deep fryers: Quick cooking solutions that are especially important for any quick serve or made-to-order operation.
Grills & Griddles: Perfect for operations that need an option for grilled meats, breakfast items and other specialty applications.
Specialty Cooking Equipment: Depending on the nature of your commercial kitchen, specialty cooking equipment could include pizza ovens, specialty pasta cookers and other pieces of equipment.
Refrigeration Solutions:
Where are you going to store all that food that gets delivered to your commercial kitchen?
As you know, refrigeration solutions provide reliable cold storage for food to help extend its shelf life.
But within refrigeration, there are numerous pieces of equipment to consider depending on the unique needs of your business.
Some of these solutions include:
Reach-in Refrigeration and Freezers: Essential cold storage to keep foods fresh, especially perishable ones.
Walk-in Fridges and Freezers: For larger commercial kitchens, walk-ins provide necessary storage space that normal reach-in applications can’t handle.
Food Preparation Equipment:
Next up within the categories of essential commercial kitchen equipment is equipment dedicated to food preparation.
Any commercial kitchen needs an efficient solution for their food prep, and making sure that you are choosing the right prep equipment can make all the difference.
Some of the critical food prep equipment available to commercial kitchens include:
Food Processors: For effective chopping, blending and pureeing of your ingredients.
Mixers: Critical for bakeries and other commercial kitchens that regularly work with doughs, sauces, and other specialty food items.
Slicers: Used to assist with meats, cheeses and other food groups that need consistent slicing and preparation.
Worktables, Cutting Surface and Combination Stations: Used to help foodservice handlers put together, build, and prepare food items for presentation to the customer.
Storage and Shelving:
In any commercial kitchen, planning storage space is critical to the overall success of the foodservice operation.
Well-planned storage can help your chefs and other employees be more efficient.
Some of the critical pieces of storage equipment for a commercial kitchen include:
Shelving Units: Fixed and Adjustable shelving configurations
Food storage containers: Airtight containers to store and extend the life of food stocks. Even better with clear labeling options for quick and easy item retrieval in busy kitchens.
Utility and Storage Carts: Tools to help commercial kitchens move and transport prepared and raw foods to different departments within the commercial kitchen.
Dishwashing Equipment:
All commercial kitchens have one thing in common no matter how different their needs and objectives are and that’s dirty dishes!
Effective dishwashing equipment and spaces help to lessen the burden on your kitchen’s overall operation, keeping things moving effectively and quickly in busy kitchen environments. Some of the critical dishwashing equipment includes:
Commercial Dishwashers: Under-counter, conveyor and manual high-efficiency dishwashing machines help make the task of manual dishwashing a thing of the past.
Well-planned sinks: Setting up your commercial kitchen with effect and well-defined sink placement can make all the difference to a commercial kitchen looking to stay efficient even in periods of high demand.
Safety Equipment:
The final category in our list, safety equipment is not only critical to a commercial kitchen’s success, but in most places is almost always required for any commercial kitchen operation.
Some of the safety equipment that should be considered when planning for your new commercial kitchen include:
First-aid kits: Easily accessible first-aid kits to treat minor workplace injuries.
Fire-suppression systems: Systems installed to automatically extinguish serious kitchen fires near and around cooking equipment.
Non-slip and Padded Mats: To help reduce employee wear and tear and to reduce accidental slip and fall accidents within the workplace.
Mobile AED / Defibrillator: For emergency life-saving equipment within the workplace.
Choosing Quality Equipment
The process of stocking a new commercial foodservice location with quality foodservice equipment can be a very costly venture.
However, choosing quality commercial foodservice equipment is imperative.
On the surface, saving a percentage in upfront costs with discounts or lower-quality gear can seem like a good option for new foodservice start-ups.
However, like most things in life, you get what you pay for.
Choosing quality commercial foodservice equipment can have a higher upfront cost, but can save money for foodservice operators in the long run with reduced upkeep, maintenance and replacements.
Make sure to consider brands with a quality reputation and gear that will last for the long term in your new commercial kitchen.
Doing so could be the difference between your business’s success or failure within the first few years of operations.
Examples of Essential Commercial Foodservice Equipment
Here at Channel Manufacturing, we assist commercial foodservice operations with quality foodservice and material handling equipment that is the perfect solution for your carts, racks, shelves and dollies in commercial kitchen applications.
To help new foodservice operations, we’ve put together the following list of highlighted products from our product catalog that are perfect for a list of essential commercial kitchen equipment.
Some examples of our quality foodservice equipment include:
Bun Pan Racks:
Bun pan racks are one of the most essential pieces of equipment in commercial kitchen operations. Known also as sheet pan racks, speed racks, or bakery racks, the bun pan rack serves a variety of uses for food services, businesses, restaurants, bakeries, cafeterias and more.
The bun pan rack is used to easily store and efficiently transport bun pans, which are commonly utilized flat trays that help commercial food kitchens with products like pastries, breads and other common food preparation.
Here at Channel Manufacturing, we design and manufacture a variety of bun pan racks.
Some of the variants of bun pan racks that we offer for foodservice operations include:
Cafeteria Tray Racks:
Cafeteria tray racks are another category of essential commercial kitchen equipment, especially for foodservice operations that serve food within cafeterias and other grouped dining facilities.
Locations like schools, conference centers, and prisons are in constant need of effective transport and storage of cafe trays, and cafeteria tray racks.
Cafeteria tray racks are designed to help organize, store and transport trays and dirty dishes efficiently, helping larger commercial kitchen operations run smoother.
Here at Channel Manufacturing, we offer a wide variety of cafeteria tray racks that are suited for specialized usage within foodservice applications.
Some of the high-quality cafeteria tray racks we design and manufacture include:
Carts, Trucks & Dollies for Transport
One of the most important considerations for any commercial kitchen is in how food, dishes and trays will be efficiently transported within the physical location.
That’s where quality carts, trucks and dollies come into play for foodservice operators.
At Channel Manufacturing, we offer a wide range of reliable and durable foodservice transport options for our customers in the foodservice industry.
Some of these products include:
Shelving
Storage space is obviously extremely critical in any commercial kitchen operation.
That’s where quality foodservice shelving comes into play for commercial kitchen operators.
Beyond simply storing your food, shelving can help make kitchen processes run more smoothly for kitchen operators and provide much-needed vertical spacing to help make the most of your kitchen’s potentially cramped spaces.
At Channel Manufacturing, our team designs and manufactures a number of different shelving options for foodservice businesses.
Some of these include:
Tables & Equipment Stands
Where will your team prep and plate your food in your commercial kitchen?
Unless you’ve planned built-in workstations within your location, high-quality tables and equipment stands are a must for your commercial kitchen.
Tables and Equipment Stands allow both mobile and fixed solutions for your food preparation needs.
At Channel Manufacturing, our collection of Tables and Equipment Stands helps foodservice operators and their employees with a quality solution for your food prep needs.
Some of our quality equipment in this category includes:
- Convection Oven Stands
- Outrigger Slicer Stands
- Poly Top & Boat Rack Worktables
- Mobile, All-Welded Tables
- Customized Equipment Stands
Commercial Kitchen Equipment Conclusions
At the end of the day, setting up a commercial kitchen for foodservice operations can be quite an undertaking that requires careful planning, organization and investment to ensure that a commercial kitchen runs smoothly.
By understanding the unique needs of your business and making intelligent, well-research decisions about your prospective equipment, food service operators can help to ensure an effective operation in their new kitchens.
With all of the options for foodservice equipment out there in the market today, it’s important to remember that the goal is not to fill your kitchen with tons of gear that you don’t need, but rather to choose your equipment carefully based on what will help your operation excel and flourish.
At Channel Manufacturing we are passionate about the world of foodservice and material handling equipment and we pride ourselves on assisting our foodservice customers with quality products that are built to last.
Have a look through our foodservice product catalog, or contact us today to have a team member guide you through the process of stocking your kitchen with quality custom equipment.
We wish you the best in your new foodservice business!
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