But having a hygienic commercial kitchen means more than just working off a cleaning rota and making sure everything is wiped down and tidied after a service. Having a specifically fabrication kitchen can help increase the levels of hygiene in ways that cleaning can’t. It can also help speed up the cleaning process and make it easier for your back of house team.
If you are thinking about upgrading your current kitchen set up, or you are in the process of planning out your commercial kitchen from the very beginning then this article is for you. We are going to go through the ways in which you can make your kitchen as hygienic as possible.
HYGIENE in a commercial kitchen
If you have or are planning to have your commercial kitchen completely fabricated to fit the space you have, then you want to push to have a fully seamless finish. One of the biggest causes of contamination in a kitchen occurs when dirt and debris gets caught behind kitchen appliances. These gaps can be just centimetres wide however small crumbs, grease etc can travel down there and it’s too small and too awkward of a gap to clean behind. The only way to really deep clean behind kitchen equipment like this is to physically pull it forward and manually clean the area.
However, in a seamless commercial kitchen, all of the equipment and the appliances are sealed to the surfaces. This ensures that nothing can get trapped behind anything else. Using silicone to seal everything together means it can all be cleaned and sanitised in one go, rather than having to clean one appliance at a time.
Seamless worktops also completely reduce the chance of getting small bits of dirt and debris caught in the joins. You may have noticed, even in your kitchen at home, that flour, sugar, salt etc can get trapped in the joints and seams of your work tops. And it can be a fiddly nightmare to remove them. Well you can avoid all of these issues with a seamless work top.
For some start ups, creating a fully bespoke and custom fabricated kitchen can be out of budget. So here are a few ways in which you can create a bespoke commercial kitchen without the price tag.
You can buy separate pieces of modular equipment and get a one piece top to join them together. Many producers and manufacturers create modular kitchen equipment that you can fit together to create a seamless style kitchen that doesn’t come with a hefty price tag.
Linking to this point, if you purchase equipment from the same manufacturer, you will be able to connect your joins closer and more accurately. This is because they will tend to work from the same dimensions and same shapes etc so the whole collection will work better together.
If you do buy separate equipment to make your own seamless commercial kitchen, then you may want to look into using an infill for those pieces of equipment that have to stand away from the wall. This way any dirt or grease that would normally go straight down the gap can be caught and cleaned.
And one final thing you need to think about when trying to create your own seamless kitchen is whether you need wheels on your kitchen appliances. For those that are attached seamlessly to your wall, you won’t need wheels as you won’t even need to/be able to move them away. However, if your appliances aren’t permanently sealed to the other surfaces then maybe you do want wheels attached to them for ease of movements and cleaning behind.
Flooring HYGIENE
So your commercial kitchen is completely seamless, easy to clean and fit for purpose. So now is the time to think about your flooring.
The main culprit of contamination on the floor comes from underneath the cooking appliances. Food, bits of dirt, debris and grease can get stuck under there and can become very difficult to clean. So the way to fix this issue is to have a flooring that comes up to the appliance itself. The appliance will be raised on a plint with the flooring coming up to completely cover what used to be that dirt trapping gap.
There are two plint types that we would suggest:
- Hollow
A hollow plint is normally created using steel or timber studwork then covered using flooring material and sealing equipment. This is the cheaper option of the two.
- Concrete
A concrete plint is a solid object that is basically placed under your appliances. However you need to think about any gas, water, or electrical cables that may be coming up from the bottom of the appliance and plan around them.
Of course if you didn’t want to use plints in your kitchen, the most cost effective option is the use of steel toe kicks. These toe kicks can be clipped under the appliances to trap dirt, however it isn’t 100% effective. They will still need to be routinely removed so that you can clean under the appliance.
The positives that come with plinted equipment means there is no need for removal. You can simply use your floor cleaning equipment and clean up the area.
Fabricated Commercial Kitchens
If you’re looking to create a hygienic commercial kitchen, then why not speak to a commercial catering company who focus on creating top of the range fabricated commercial kitchen. NWCE Foodservice Equipment are a company who have teams that are dedicated to creating bespoke, fabricated kitchen. They will work with you on your kitchen design and create something that fits into your budget and expectations.
