Sunday, June 30, 2019

Benefits of Commercial Food Equipment maintenance


Well-functioning pieces of equipment are a must if you want your restaurant to be successful. Your commercial food equipment guides and affects the operation of your entire business. Lack of maintenance can lead to malfunction of equipment eventually.

As a result, it decreases equipment performance, reduces profit margins, and increases wastage. You may also suffer from huge losses, particularly if your equipment breaks down right before you open or during peak hours.

You can avoid these problems by ensuring that your restaurant equipment is regularly maintained all the time.

How is commercial restaurant equipment maintenance beneficial to the success of your business? Here are some of the advantages of maintaining your food equipment:

Increase Speed of Operations

A commercial kitchen is a busy place. It should have quick turn times to be able to keep up with orders and demands. Ill-equipped and depreciated equipment can slow down the operation of the kitchen, including the preparation of food.

Subsequently, the quality of your restaurant also decreases, making you lose customers, which means loss of revenue. It is important that it does not happen in your business. Pay close attention to your choice of Brisbane commercial food equipment to increase efficiency in performance and operation.

Maintain Quality of Food

The condition and quality of your kitchen equipment have an impact on the quality of food in your restaurant. Even if your restaurant has the best chefs in town, your food quality will fail to meet the required standards if you are using poorly upheld equipment. This can result in a negative reputation in your business as a loss of customers can be due to badly prepared food.

As much as possible, you have to do everything so that the quality of your food stays supreme compared to your competitors. This is one of the ways to survive in this industry. With quality and well-maintained equipment, you can rest assured that the food you serve is safe for your customers.

Save Money

You must have a cost-effective approach to running your commercial restaurant for it to be successful. Restaurant equipment can be costly and you should not ignore maintenance. Often, a warranty does not cover larger repairs. You usually end up having to use your own money for these kinds of repairs.

Doing regular maintenance ensures your Brisbane commercial food equipment is working perfectly and any problems are addressed early, thus preventing major damages.

What’s more, restaurant equipment that is maintained poorly has the tendency to consume more energy, causing your energy bills to increase. Take care of your kitchen equipment so it can work with you for a long time. it means you do not have to spend unnecessarily on buying new equipment.

Extended Equipment Service

Maintenance slows down the depreciation rate of your commercial food equipment and extends its lifespan. Prevent a major breakdown by doing regular care of minor damages. Not to mention, regular maintenance deals with minor damages that help avoid hazards. Maintenance on a regular basis also averts premature damage.

Planning Your Commercial Kitchen Brisbane


Whether you are renovating an existing restaurant, opening your first restaurant, or your second restaurant, a great restaurant kitchen design must be high on your list of priorities.

A commercial kitchen requires industrial grade equipment that can withstand the busy schedule of a restaurant. The layout and design of a restaurant kitchen should allow a seamless flow of food from the preparation area to the line area. At times, a new restaurant has an amazing location, but with a small kitchen space. It is important to adapt your kitchen plans accordingly.

What Is The Role Of Your Commercial Kitchen

The heart of the restaurant is the kitchen. This is where the menu comes to life. It is where the preparation, cooking, and plating happen. It is also where you store your food, bring the dirty dishes, and house all your utensils and cooking equipment.

A restaurant kitchen typically has many people in and out of it round the clock. It is essential to be organized. There is a place for everything and everything should be in the right place. Proper organization saves time during the busy hours.

Using Commercial Ranges and Ovens

Commercial ranges and ovens are specifically designed to withstand high volume cooking. While they are one of the most expensive items of equipment you can purchase today, a good commercial range can last for many years.

The type of food that you serve in your restaurant determines the type of range you need. For example, if you are serving barbeque items on your menu, then you need a quality size grill. If one of your mainstays is sautéed dishes, then consider buying a six burner range.

Other factors to consider with any kitchen grills, stove or oven in your commercial kitchen are the heating ventilation air conditioning system that includes fire and hood safety.

Air Ventilation

As you take energy efficiency into consideration, factor in air ventilation. If there isn't proper ventilation in the kitchen, the quality of indoor air will suffer.

When the chef starts cooking, turn on the range fan and not on the midway. Change the filter in the range hood regularly. When planning the floor plan of your kitchen, consider adding fans or air purifiers throughout your kitchen, as the back of place can become hot.

Maintenance

Not making space for maintenance in your commercial kitchen Brisbane can become your biggest mistake. Just imagine, your oven breaks down two months after opening. If the repairman cannot fix the damage due to various reasons, you may need to purchase new equipment. You probably, have no budget for it, which is another problem for you.

When you design your kitchen to be modular, you are also planning for the worst. By doing this, you can easily change certain areas to access appliances such as ranges, refrigerators, and others that might break down.

Research Local Health Codes

Regulations for commercial restaurant vary from state to state, which are vital when designing your commercial kitchen. in addition, you should meet the employee safety protocols, fire codes, and health codes.

Commercial Food Equipment


There is no surefire guide to success when starting out a catering business at home. However, if you’re a skilled cook, can do some business planning, and have loads of patience and determination, it’s a great way to start. Take note that even though your catering business will be at home, you will still need a lot of commercial food equipment, including utensils, food preparation, food service, and storage.

We recommend starting small, especially if this is your first time starting a business. Start by catering small events like birthday parties for your neighbors or perhaps a luncheon for the local PTA. This will give you a taste of what’s in store for you later on as you expand, and you will also be able to get a good idea if this is something that you really want to do.

Focus on what you know and what you’re good at. It’s good that you want to try and learn new stuff in the kitchen, but if you’re just starting out, it’s better to lead with what you know. A lot of start-ups flourish because the owner focused on what he or she knew best. For example, if you have mastered the grill, it’d be a waste of time, money, and effort to start your catering business by preparing teppanyaki dishes or Mexican cuisine.

Decide first on what kind of food you will want or are able to prepare most of the time. Is there a specific cuisine you’re particularly good at, or maybe you’re looking to cater to specific functions or events? Some people prefer catering for children’s birthday parties, while others would rather serve a hundred guests at weddings or business functions than handle a kids’ party.

If you know what you want for your catering business, the next step would be to purchase or rent commercial food equipment for your kitchen. That means spending a lot of money, but if you have already finetuned your business plan and know exactly what type of catering you’re going to do, you can pick and select the equipment you need out of hundreds of options.

Buying or renting commercial food equipment does not only mean getting the appliances, like the refrigerators, ovens, ranges, stoves, and grills. You’d also have to secure utensils, food service items, food storage and containers, and a lot more. In some cases, a caterer will also need to take care of the décor for the tables and chairs, so if you’re planning to do that, you also need to do more shopping.

Don’t forget to meet with your local health department to see what legal paperwork you need to take care of. Since you’re going to operate a commercial kitchen, you will have to secure licensing, permits, and insurance. Make sure you are fully aware of any legal regulations that govern your type of business, including taxation and employment policies.

Have you also thought about how you’re going to market your catering business? Social media is the go-to marketing platform these days, but you might also want to take a look at a few old school advertising techniques to let people know about your business.

Friday, June 14, 2019

Queensland Catering Equipment – What You Need to Get Started


The catering equipment you need to get started will depend on what type of catering you are planning to do. It’s just going to be a waste of money to go inside a restaurant supply store and start buying everything when you won’t even use half of it. The best thing to do before purchasing or renting anything is to figure out what type of caterer you’re going to be.

In any given location, there will be plenty of demand for different types of caterers. There are catering services specializing in weddings and big corporate events, caterers who prefer to host intimate gatherings, cocktails, and informal get-togethers, and those who are more interested in buffet catering or food delivery service.

You need to do some research on which Queensland catering equipment will be most suitable for your type of catering. We have prepared a general overview of what you will need, but keep in mind that you can always add or remove items on the list depending on what your budget dictates or what your preference will be:

·         Food preparation – You will need to buy food mixers, blenders, slicers, and food processors. Of course, knives and cutting surfaces are essential items here. The scale and complexity of the equipment you buy depends on the specific catering service you’re providing. For example, if you tend to bake a lot of pastries or cakes, a commercial grade mixer will be more suitable for you. If you just bake mini-muffins for special occasions, a countertop mixer will be enough.

·         Cooking – Depending on what kind of food you usually prepare for your clients, you will need an assortment of stove tops, range ovens, pizza ovens, bratt pans, griddles, fryers, induction hobs, and char broilers. FYI, a bratt pan is a commercial grade appliance used for several types of cooking, such as braising, steaming, boiling, stewing, poaching, deep frying, and shallow frying.

·         Food service – Most of the equipment listed above can be applicable to commercial kitchens, but foodservice items are the nuts and bolts of catering. If you’re compiling a list of the most important Queensland catering equipment to buy, here is what you need: serving trays, soup bowls, soup wells, and salad bowls. Depending on the food, you might need to get Japanese noodle bowls, wooden or bamboo sushi trays, salsa dishes, etc.

·         Buffets – If you’re more into buffets, you will need carving stations, steam tables and salad bars, dessert stands, punch bowls, chafers and chafing dishes, cutlery racks, plate dispensers, beverage dispensers, beverage coolers, portable bars, and condiment pumps.

·         Food transport – You will need to get the food from the kitchen out to the venue as fast and efficiently as possible. For that, you will need insulated food delivery bags, transport carts, insulated food pan carriers, beverage service carts, and bus tubs or tote boxes. For food pan carriers, pick out the ones that can be loaded from the front. High quality food carriers are insulated to allow your food to stay hot or cold for up to 4 hours or more while protecting the meals you’ve prepared.