The catering and restaurant business is very demanding of you, your chefs and other employees – not forgetting your equipment. So, selecting the best quality equipment pays off over time.
If you don’t have your kitchen equipped properly, you can’t really call it a kitchen. You need to have the correct gear, that’s of high quality, in order to be considered a real business. If your chef is utterly amazing, if all the cooks are talented beyond compare, it simply won’t matter – if you don’t provide them with the right materials for the job, it just won’t run well. You need the right cooking utensils and equipment for large volume cooking, then the right food storage options for gravies, prepared vegetables and all the ingredients your chefs will need to use.
Let’s start with pots, pans and other dishes to cook in. The average sized pan, or even a large one you’d use at home, has no real use in a professional kitchen. In order to prepare enough soup stock for example, you need an extra-large commercial sized stock pot and a container or food grade bucket to store it in. The same goes for sauce pots, frying pans, broilers and more. There’s no point in skimping here to save money, trust us! The quality has to be much better than your regular home variety because of the increased wear and tear on a daily basis – sometimes even multiple times a day. And the same applies to the utensils. Spoons, ladles, measuring cups and more will need to be used often, so quality is important.
Next up is the equipment you use – it plays a massive role in how well you can serve your customers. Cheap, low grade machinery breaks down more often and can’t handle the work load of a busy restaurant or catering service. When it breaks down, you either have to repair or replace it – either way resulting in down time and loss of productivity. Of course, that affects your bottom line negatively in many ways, and those costs and lost revenue add up. So it’s far better to invest in superior quality stoves, ovens, microwaves and food processors. Your investment will pay off quickly when happy customers return time and time again.
Last, but not least, your food storage and service items need to be of good quality too. Plates, knives and forks should be able to withstand numerous washes without losing their lustre, and survive the inevitable bumps and collisions that occur in busy kitchens. Your ingredients need to be kept in food safe containers with lids to prevent foreign objects from falling in, and your gravies and sauces need to be stored in quality food grade buckets in the refrigerator.
All of these factors play a vital role in the success of your restaurant or catering service.