Industry 4.0, kitchen 4.0 – this is how one describes the evolutionary merging of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and information technology to an intelligently linked production, even in large-scale kitchens. Up until now, many processes with the preparation, distribution, and serving meals are decoupled time-wise and spatially. In the kitchen 4.0, they are brought together in order to optimize procedures, take the load off the staff, and reduce costs.
By Dieter Mailander
The Era of Digitalization has begun in professional kitchen too. What is behind this term? Without being able to claim to define this term scientifically correct and comprehensively, one can sum it up in the colloquial: in a narrow context, digitalization is a process in most different economic and social areas, in which information, instructions and the like are transferred into an artificial language which is understood by the programs of computers, technical systems, machines and equipment. In a broader context, it is about linking this equipment with each other in order to optimize procedures, deployment of staff and costs.
Digitalization has been visible in in professional kitchens as well. Combi-steamers, for instance, have a vast number of programs, with which totally different types of cooking processes can be controlled. Whoever would like to control his equipment independently of the actual site, can transfer the relevant data to a so-called “cloud”. Then these will not be saved on...
