Commercial equipment maintenance is a positive for your kitchen in multiple different ways. It not only saves money, but it can make your kitchen more energy efficient and overall time saving.
If you don’t currently carry out any commercial kitchen maintenance, here are a few more in depth reasons on why maintenance is so important and some handy tips that you can carry out on your commercial kitchen.
Catering Equipment Maintenance
During professional maintenance, if you have any smaller internal issues within your equipment, these can be picked up on and acted upon before they become a larger issue.
For example, there may be a small blockage in one of your gas hobs that you haven’t noticed yet. If left long enough, that could cause the entire hob to fail working or even more dangerously, it could cause a fire. If the hob does break, that then means you have to book in for a repair. If the company you decide to use is busy, you may have to wait a few days for the call out. Then depending on how big the issue is, you might even have to wait days for a part to be ordered, sent out and re-installed. So from what started out as a small issue, it has now turned into a major problem that has put a piece of key kitchen equipment out of use for a few days.
Having to call people out, ordering parts and paying for labour can end up being extremely expensive, when most of the time all of this could’ve been avoided by a simple maintenance check.
Companies such as NWCE Foodservice Equipment offer extensive, bespoke service and maintenance plans. Their engineers create the plans around what you have in your commercial kitchen. So you have peace of mind that all your equipment is being fully checked over and if there are any issues they can be caught and dealt with before they turn into bigger, more costly problems.
Having equipment breakdowns can in turn have an effect on your kitchen team. It can be incredibly demoralising having to work in a kitchen that is under more pressure due to a key piece of equipment not work. Or even worse, if you have to close down for a repair, your team will be the ones who are effected as they’re unable to work and earn money.
Catering Maintenance
If you’re looking to avoid all of this unnecessary downtime and expenditure, then it’s important you have your equipment booked in for regular maintenance which is also known as planned preventative maintenance. This planned maintenance is routinely scheduled at a time that suits your kitchen, meaning no downtime. Engineers, such as those at NWCE Foodservice Equipment, will book in at a time and date that suits you and your kitchen. The engineers will then thoroughly inspect all of the catering equipment that is covered by the maintenance plan. During these checks, the engineers will make notes of any issues that they may find and then make you aware of it. If the issue is small enough to fix on the day, depending on what equipment the engineer has with them, they may be able to sort it there and then. If they can’t, they may schedule in a second appointment in which they will come back and fix the issue.
If any large problems are uncovered, you may have to book in for a full repair or refurbishment. The most cost effective way to carry out a refurbishment is by using older, working parts. It’s also important that you choose the right contractors, companies such as NWCE Foodservice Equipment. You need engineers who have the experience of working with catering equipment.
Catering equipment servicing
When it comes to carrying out maintenance on a day to day, there are a few simple steps all the team can take in order for your equipment to work at maximum capacity.
After every service, your team need to ensure that all the equipment used is cleaned down correctly. That includes wiping down any seals, cleaning out grease traps and wiping down all surfaces.
As well as daily cleaning, it’s essential that deeper cleaning is scheduled in at regular intervals. Daily cleaning will of course have a massive impact on any grease, dirt and food build ups, but deep cleans can target all the smaller nooks and crannies that could potentially get missed.
When cleaning be sure to use the correct cleaning solutions in order not to damage any of the equipment. With the majority of commercial kitchens being created out of stainless steel, there are some key points to remember in order to keep them looking brand new. The metal itself is very durable but if it’s not looked after correctly it can still tarnish and be damaged. When cleaning stainless steel, only use soft cloths and sponges with warm water and mild detergent solution.
Then when wiping stainless steel surfaces down,you should always wipe in the direction of the grain to avoid any scratches and blemishes. Any acidic ingredients that are spilt onto the surfaces should be wiped up immediately to prevent acidity damaging the protective surface layer.
Commercial Kitchen Maintenance
When it comes to your commercial kitchen and all of your catering equipment, your main priority should be keeping it working as safely and as effectively as possible. In order to do this, you need to carry out regular maintenance both by yourself and catering engineers. For more information on bespoke service and maintenance plans, why not get in touch with NWCE Catering Engineers? Their team will be able to talk you through all of the different commercial catering services that their engineers can provide.
Check our other blogs
WHAT PLANNED PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE DOES FOR YOUR COMMERCIAL KITCHEN
WHY YOU NEED TO KEEP ON TOP OF YOUR CATERING EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE
