The layout of your commercial kitchen is fundamental. Keeping your employees in mind while designing the layout enhances the quality of the food coming out of your kitchen, time, and cost savings as well as improving overall the economics for your business. When creating the workflow for your commercial kitchen, you should also focus on the health and safety of your workers and protecting the health of your customers.
How the design of a kitchen relates to health, safety
Designers need to be very familiar with commercial kitchen appliances as well as the people processes of a professional kitchen before designing a new workflow. When appliances are designed to interact with each other as well as with the people in the kitchen, the workflow is efficient, and the team will be productive. In-depth knowledge is required.
Safety in professional kitchens
The environment of a professional kitchen should be created to prevent injuries and identify all possible hazards in materials and personnel.
How can you make sure the kitchen layout is designed for safety?
Some kitchen injuries can be caused by the misuse of simple kitchen equipment, especially during food preparation. Employees use knives and other sharp kitchen utensils. There is also glass, hand-operated devices, and hot liquids.
Safe food preparation equipment should be crafted of the right material. They should be user-friendly, easy to wash, and non-toxic.
The range of food preparation from Electrolux Professional is ergonomic, BPA-free, designed for safety and easy cleaning.
Also, a well-planned workflow for your commercial kitchen allows for every process in the smallest footprint of the kitchen. Interaction should be as smooth as possible. Identifying “unnatural” movement by workers helps to identify risks for accidents and injuries in hectic professional environments.
Important issues relating to health concerns in commercial kitchens
Thoroughly cleaning your kitchen can keep costs down in the kitchen and makes it healthier to work. Choosing appliances that are easy to clean is essential. If you purchase equipment from multiple suppliers, it can be a challenge to adapt them for combined use in the professional kitchen.
Electrolux Professional can supply a range of appliances to cover almost all commercial kitchen needs. It will help you design a safe and healthy kitchen layout.
Kitchen workflows should also be designed to reduce the possibility of cross-contamination. Cross-contamination occurs through avoidable contact between food and contaminating agents. Employees don’t wash their hands after handling raw food, raw and cooked food is not separated.
Service and storage areas should be completely separate from the rest of the kitchen. Chemicals and cleaning products should be stored away from food preparation areas and not in cabinets hanging above the food prep areas.
Blast chillers and freezers are central to food preservation and food safety.
Placing a blast chiller in your kitchen should be positioned to be friendly for workflow. Overs should be near blast chillers. Under counter freezers should be near the deep fryers.
Food is not left out of the fridge and exposed to bacteria and other contaminants.
The important thing here is to “know your chiller” since the best appliance is always the one with unsurpassed performance in terms of chilling/freezing time and interaction with partner appliances.
