16/12/2018

Top things to consider during the commercial kitchen design process

The kitchen is the heart and soul of any thriving catering business and making sure everything flows as it should is essential when it comes to the success of your new establishment.

Perfecting the layoutof your commercial kitchen is the bare bones of the design process and ideally, you’ll want to keep things as simple and uncomplicated as you can. Ease of use,practicality and creating a productive workflow should be top priorities whenforming your initial ideas.

As we’re sure you’ll know, the fewer steps need to complete a task the better so navigating around your working environment should be effortless and streamlined with minimal bending, turning, reaching and walking involved.

Most commercial kitchens are based around one of three common layout options and these make fabulous starting points during the initial planning discussions:-

Zone-style: The kitchen is divided into different sections with each area reserved for a particular task i.e. food preparation, cooking, sanitation and washing etc.

Island-style: Day-to-day operations are carried make fabulous a central block in the middle of your workspace. In most kitchens, the cooking equipment will be in the middle block with other activities based on the outer walls although this can be reversed.

Assembly line: Ideal for ventures where staff will be producing large quantities of the same dish, an assembly line is similar to a conveyer belt with the kitchen designed to flow in order and the equipment lined up ready to use as the meal is created from start to finish.

Having said that and with those conventional designs in mind, don’t be afraid to deviate away from the norm and research new and innovative space-saving designs and storage solutions to ensure you’re making the most of your available workspace. Feel free to have a look at some of our latest projects for inspiration.

We’d also advise against a very rigid design that can’t be easily rearranged as flexibility is crucial to accommodate any required changes without disruption to your services. The last thing you want to deal with is potential profit loss directly linked to a poorly designed workspace, especially when it’s so easily avoided if you know the common industry pitfalls and how to steer clear of them.

Above all,you can be sure that as professionals we ensure that your plans adhere to thenecessary rules and regulations. We can promise  that our team areknowledgable up of any legislation that will apply to your business includingfood preparation, health and safety, ventilation/temperature controls and employee rights. We’ll behonest, it’s a bit of a minefield but you’re in safe hands when you have theright professionals to guide you through the experience you shouldn’t need toworry about a thing.

Here at Lloyd Catering, we’ve been providing intelligent foodservice solutions to our clients for our60 years and with a genuine passion for the industry, we’re dedicated to creating a highly-efficient kitchen environment that works for you and and with.

In addition, we’ve alsoinvested in the latest CAD technology to assist us to accurately visualise yourideas and allow us to present design concepts to your team in full motion virtual reality.

If you’re looking for piece of mind when it comes to designing your commercial kitchen, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.