Commercial kitchen design and planning
Commercial kitchens are designed for smoothening the food production process at a larger scale where all safety standards to produce the food are met. Restaurants, hotels, hospitals, workplaces, educational institutions are areas that require a functioning commercial kitchen to fulfill the demand and supply of food efficiently to people. Each commercial kitchen is unique and comes with its own set of requirements. A restaurant will have a different commercial kitchen set-up as compared to a commercial kitchen in a hospital.
Commercial kitchens are designed to have facilities that are licensed for commercial set-ups to prepare and store food meeting hygiene standards. The success of a good commercial kitchen lies in how actively the staff members (who have to work in a commercial kitchen) are involved in the designing process of the commercial kitchen.
Let’s take you through some steps on how to successfully design a commercial kitchen:
1) Involve your senior management kitchen staff
In a kitchen, the senior-most active member is the chef. Chefs know your kitchen better than you do. It’s important to involve them in the designing process of your commercial kitchen. Chefs know exactly what equipment is required for a commercial kitchen, they know the menu of the food to be prepared and they know the kitchen layout which can help in setting up the commercial kitchen.
2) Menu: The key to designing a better commercial kitchen
While designing a commercial kitchen it is important to take into consideration the food that will be prepared in it. That is why your menu is a priority. It is of paramount importance to create a list of all the food that needs to be prepared in your commercial kitchen. Making a list of all the food items, special ingredients that are needed for the preparation of your food. All this information helps you organize the space for equipment’s such as ovens, gas stations, cold storages, etc in the commercial kitchen.
3) Zen mode in your commercial kitchen
As cliche as it sounds, it’s important to have a clean, well-planned commercial kitchen. Commercial kitchens can be a stressful place to function in due to the quantity of the food productions involved and that too at a time-bound space. To make the lives of your kitchen staff easier, it’s important to design an organized space that has segregated portions for every item such as cutlery, utensils, cooking equipment, ventilation systems, etc. It’s important to practice zen mode in your commercial kitchen.
4) Have your health-compliances and licenses in check
Commercial kitchen design and planning requires all health codes and licenses to be in check to be a certified space from health inspectors. Health codes, fire codes, employee safety protocols, quality standards of kitchen equipment, sinks, disposal mechanisms, are all taken into consideration while designing a commercial kitchen that is compliant with health regulations and laws stated by your local government.
5) Prepare for the worst: Maintenance
A commercial kitchen must be modular so that you can move certain areas around to access pieces of equipment in the kitchen that are prone to wear and tear. Refrigerators, cooking ranges, ovens are delicate types of equipment that are the most prone to damage. Thus they need to be placed in an accessible manner so that if they do breakdown the repairman can easily access them and fix them without breaking their backs.
The next step in understanding what are the types of equipment required while designing a commercial kitchen. Here is a list of types of equipment for a commercial kitchen:
1) Lighting
2) Plumbing and heating
3) Commercially compliant: refrigerators, cold storage, grills, cooking range
4) Ice machine
5) Ovens
6) Cooking utensils, cutlery, linen
7) Deep fryers
8) Chef’s knives, tongs, spatulas, ladles
9) Mixing and serving bowls
10) Serving utensils for entrees, main course, desserts
11) Safety equipment: fire extinguishers, CCTV cameras, wet floor signs, aprons, goggles, mittens, etc.
12) Rubber floor mats, cleaning cloth
13) Buckets and mops
14) Soap Dispensing machine and a sink to wash hands
15) Exhaust fans, ventilation and drainage system
It is important to note here that all the equipment and appliances in a commercial kitchen must be energy efficient and regarded as safe for the environment. Training of kitchen staff is necessary as they are the ones on the front-end who will be running, managing, and maintaining the commercial kitchen.
Designing a commercial kitchen requires the touch of an expert. What better expert to consult than HPG Consulting for your commercial kitchen. They are India’s leading consulting group that has carved a niche in the food and beverage consulting sector. The kitchen consultants at HPG Consulting are trained to deliver the perfect commercial kitchen that is customized as per your requirement, compliant with rules and regulations, high on quality and efficiency. Right from designing the perfect layout for your commercial kitchen that blends solid design principles and individual kitchen components effectively, both in terms of operations as well as costs. The kitchen consultants also take into consideration the planning of the layout and design of the commercial kitchen depending on whether it is a bakery, cold kitchen, service bar, etc. Determining the specific requirement of cold storage, dishwashing, vertical, and horizontal service movements is a forte of the kitchen consultants at HPG Consulting.
The kitchen consultants help food businesses set-up commercial kitchens in the following ways:
1) They understand each client’s USP and deliver kitchen plans after assessing the client’s demands.
2) They have the relevant expertise and in-depth knowledge to provide valuable input while designing the client’s commercial kitchen.
3) They are well-versed with the latest technological developments associated with designing a commercial kitchen.
4) They have an end-to-end approach: Right from conceptualizing the kitchen plan to delivery of a world-class commercial kitchen.
HPG Consulting has heralded projects of designing and establishing commercial kitchens with well-known organizations such as Taj & Carlson, Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Apollo Hospital, Artemis Hospital, Step by Step, Google, IIM, Mainland China, etc.
For further clarification on designing a commercial kitchen, get in touch with the kitchen consultants at HPG Consulting today.
To discuss your requirements and get answers to all your questions, call us at +91-9311-202-627. You can also fill out our contact form, and we will get in touch as soon as possible.