Catering Equipment Installation

Your commercial kitchen layout will be determined by your equipment and appliances, which can vary depending on how big your restaurant is. If you have a large restaurant that needs to be well ventilated, you will need to design the ventilation system around your equipment.

Every commercial kitchen layout requires an overhead canopy with lights and at least one wall mounted light fixture. The exhaust hood should also precede the cooking appliances, if they are installed over a stove or over other similar appliances like ovens.

The ideal commercial kitchen layout designed with food safety in mind should have the following zones:

- An entry area that is kept clean, with cleaning supplies and sanitisers available for staff on one wall. It should also include room for bulk containers or storage bins. If you are designing a kitchen with more than one service line, this space can serve as a staging area for items, tools, and equipment that are used by several services.

- A food prep zone designed with storage, preparation areas, serving lines or cooking equipment. This is where all the food will be prepped before being served to your customers. It's best to have this zone at least a meter from the other zones where possible.

- A warewashing zone, plus storage cabinets for clean towels, hand soap and paper towels. This is where all your equipment used to wash glasses, cutlery, and dishes are located. You can also store your soiled dish carts in this zone.

- A cooking and holding zone or hot food line, sometimes referred to as a "warm" line, which includes features such as combi ovens, convection ovens, steamers, and stoves. This is where all your food after being prepared in the food prep zone gets cooked and sent to be held until served.

- A cold holding zone or "cold" line, which includes refrigeration, blast chillers, sandwich or salad bars and other cold food storage.

- A dry goods storage area where you can store food, paper supplies, and other non-edible items like cleaning products or chemicals. There should be a pathway from the food prep zone to this area in order to easily transport items between these two zones without disrupting the rest of the kitchen.

There are some legal requirements for your commercial kitchen design which must be considered when undertaking any kind of equipment installation or layout changes, such as an expansion. Always follow the latest Government advice for Kitchen Build Projects and Design of Catering Facilities.  

For the installation of equipment, advice includes, but is not limited to: equipment must be adequately spaced, with heavy processes – such as frying – to be grouped together, and this, as well as primary cooking equipment, to be preferably in a central cooking suite (an island setting) rather than against a wall. Dirty crockery should not pass through the servery area, with adequate spacing given for the washing and drying of dirty items.

Cross contamination should be minimised in the layout of your kitchen, for example food preparation areas and those occupied by chefs’ protective clothing should be clearly separated from dirty areas or from people in street, or casual, clothing. Edible food items should be kept away from toxic cleaning materials and wastage; fish should be kept separately from meat, and dairy from vegetables.

Whilst these are only a few of the main examples highlighting the regulations of a kitchen layout and installation, it is worth reading up about requirements and regulations to ensure your commercial kitchen is as safe and efficient as it can be.

Gathering an equipment checklist, based on the size and goals of your establishment, will help you organise what you require in your commercial kitchen and how much you need of it.

Compartmentalising equipment and utilities based on: refrigeration and food storage, food prep and utensils, cooking, serving, storage racks and shelving, waste disposal, cleaning and hygiene, and safety equipment is a great way to ensure nothing is forgotten.

As stated by the UK Government, there are some utilities that are legally required in your commercial kitchen. This includes ensuring your commercial kitchen has adequate lighting both inside the building and weatherproof lighting outside at all entrances, loading, and refuse areas. Your commercial kitchen must also have adequate ventilation/ extraction systems to regulate air quality and temperature, and additional extraction canopies for prime cooking equipment, warewashers, large expansion water boilers, and gas fuelled equipment. These are only a few, paraphrase examples - reviewing the latest Government advice on what is required in a commercial kitchen is best practise.