We do not know at present what a commercial kitchen will look like in five to ten years. Nevertheless, we can assume that at least the innovative manufacturers will monitor their cooking, cooling, and dish washing processes more precisely than today.
They will collect much more data, which the cooks have to evaluate, and they will have to work with their resources even more carefully. The professionals will focus increasingly in the future on cycles like those of thermodynamics (cooking, blast chilling/ flash freezing, storage/moving out of storage, distribution) or the consumption control of energy or fresh and used water. Today, the manufacturers are continually optimizing their core functions: cooking, chilling, freezing, dish washing, serving, distribution etc. They would like to improve their process results, lower the running costs and the personal expenditure, and emit fewer pollutants into the environment.
Moreover, they reduce the use of energy, water, cleaning agents, oil, etc., monitor the processes with the help of electronic systems with the utmost precision, more than has been the case so far, and reduce the emission of pollutants like CO2, waste air, and waste water. Moreover, the visitors of the spring trade fairs in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Rimini, Dubai, or Hamburg will notice that the producers are also dealing with questions about ergonomics and, for instance as an option, equipping meal distribution trolleys with electric drives. But the design and the coloring is also becoming more important, which is seen in no small part to the fact that in recent years, even catering equipment has won design prizes like the Red Dot Award. We will present below some areas of large-scale catering technology, in which manufacturers recently have implemented innovations of particular interest.
Innovative measure 1: dish washing
Within the framework of the project “SUKI – Sustainable Kitchen”, researchers have examined the energy demand in large-scale kitchens. They concluded that the systems with the highest use, at least in Central and presumably also in Northern Europe, are the heating (33%) and the ventilation (19%), followed by those of dish washing (19%) and cooking (10%). In modern equipped kitchens in Southern European countries, the ventilation could be the top priority. While with almost all of the other devices, the use of energy is the dominant factor, water and chemical cleaning agents (cleaning agent, rinse aid) are an important additional cost factor, with dish washing units. With modern devices, the costs for these items can be lowered by 30%, whereby manufacturers use different procedures. The subject matter is extremely complicated, especially with the large units. For instance, the items to be washed run through several zones in the unit.
The unit recognizes when the items to be washed are put in and then activates the dish washing process, in which efficient dosing systems monitor the use of the chemical cleaning agent and therefore reduces it significantly. Modern devices desalinate water entirely or partly using different types of procedures for this, purifying the used water again, and make use of its waste heat; in this way, the unit can be dimensioned smaller for the waste air, which on the other hand reduces the electricity consumption. More and more modular built units, which frequently even can be built into rooms with nooks and crannies, are coming on the market. The following companies, among others, manufacture dishwashing units and devices: Electrolux, Granuldisk, Ali-Group (Kromo, Stierlen, Krefft, Dihr), ITW (Hobart), jemi, Meiko, Winterhalter.
Innovation measure 2: combined cooking on a minimal space
Spaces for placing items are often a bottleneck in the kitchen as well as in hypermarkets, which would like to pull in customers with baking, cooking, and grill stations. For markets with very little space available, Ubert (www.ubert.com) offers a combi-tower, which is made up of two devices and is conceived as a food merchandiser for a floor area of one square meter. In the upper part, the rotisserie, chicken, for instance, can be broiled; in the lower part, the combi-steamer, the trimmings such as potatoes, rice, vegetables, or even other meat dishes can be cooked. The new rotisserie combines three heating systems in one device, infrared, convection, and as an option, an additional steam gun, which keeps the food to be broiled juicy, reduces the weight loss, and makes it possible to keep food warm longer. A total of 20 programs are available. Both devices have two openings and thus can be filled from behind where the preparation zones are. The cooked food can be taken from the front and reached directly over to the guest. The units operate program controlled. Frameless, full-glazed with a double panel door, and convex-shaped to ensure that the warmth doesn’t escape. Both devices are self-cleaning and relieve the personal of work that is not highly rated.
Innovation measure 3: food distribution
In order to keep the desired taste, appealing appearance, nutrients, and to guarantee hygienic safety, hot meals should be served at c. 65°, cold 7° at the most. Warm dishes should be consumed within three hours after its production. Where the meals are distributed, the temperature and its monitoring therefore play an important role. We will present you with two solutions for the problem. Rieber (www.rieber.de) hands the kitchen professionals with its System “Check”, an instrument with which they can guarantee the quality and safety of their ready-cooked food between the end of the production and its serving/distribution. They see in real time, which food is in which trolley, where the trolley is, and with which temperature. Therefore they can monitor continually the culinary, hygienic situation, and if necessary readjust it. With the mobile registration, each container receives an individual QR code.
The customer himself measures the data by way of a Bluetooth core temperature sensor and transmits the data for evaluation with the help of a smartphone to the central data management. With the registration per Auto Check, the sensors are permanently installed into the containers, which record the temperatures in specific time spans and transmit this information to the central administration. As an option, Iseco (www.iseco.eu) equips its meal distribution trolley with the registration system Isecom, which records the temperature, time, route, and speed for each trolley at the freely determined check-point and transmit it to a receiver module, which forwards the information to be evaluated to a mainframe computer; fully automatic and parallel to the work routine without contact, cable, or manual intervention. Therefore the Isecom documents the entire process chain from filling up the trolley up to its return to the scullery and it allocates the evaluated data to each trolley. In this way, the people responsible are able to trace the course of the temperature in the trolley via all stops of the food distribution. But there are not only interesting innovations in the areas that we have presented, but also with cooling devices, ventilation systems, lighting, or systematic monitoring of energy, the so-called energy management, which cuts off the peak in energy consumption, and uses the time of day with lower costs. Why shouldn’t cooking or dishwashing be done at night?