When it comes to commercial kitchens, time management can be just as important as the actual ingredients. Proactively and wisely using every minute of a shift can help reduce the chaos of lunch and dinner rushes and set your kitchen up for success.
So how can kitchens take advantage of every valuable second, while delivering a 5-star food experience for customers?
Find the right commercial foodservice equipment that shortens prep and cooking times, which frees up kitchen staff to complete other tasks.
Efficient Prep Saves Foodservice Operations Money and Can Help Them Scale
Frank Mendoza, the owner and executive chef of El Sushi Loco, found the right equipment to slash food and labor costs, and continue to scale his business with new locations.
What began as serving his Mexican-inspired sushi in a food cart became three popular locations spread across Southern California. It wasn’t easy, but Mendoza did it by investing in the right equipment to free up more time for his employees.
“You need the proper tools to do the job,” he says. “I understand that restaurant operators do not want to spend money [on equipment] because we have a lot to spend on within the restaurant. We have hundreds of items that we spend on. But right now we are spending that money and we don’t even know it.”
The Right Equipment Drastically Cuts Prepping and Cooking Times
And other cooking professionals agree.
According to industry trends, restaurants have “reached a turning point. It’s ripe for innovation, consolidation, and unification — all in service to greater efficiencies.”
By switching to more efficient kitchen equipment, Mendoza drastically cut prepping and cooking times while maintaining the taste of El Sushi Loco’s signature dishes.
A few highlights of time management improvements El Sushi Loco enjoyed include:
- It used to take staff 30 minutes to manually slice 55 pounds of tomatoes. Now it only takes 5 minutes with the Electrolux Professional TrinityPro.
- With the Electrolux Professional SkyLine Combi Oven and Electrolux Professional SkyLine Blast Chiller, Mendoza’s staff cooks 120 pounds of shrimp in only 6 minutes, instead of the 8 hours it took to cook only 40 pounds manually in a stock pot.
- With the Electrolux Professional Pressure Braising Pan, Mendoza’s staff pre-cooks 80 pounds of chicken to 165 degrees in only 8 minutes, then vacuum seals and chills them. That trims the cook-to-serve time to 4 minutes and eliminates the health risk of undercooked chicken.
- With an Electrolux Professional Thawing Cabinet, safely defrosting 300 pounds of shrimp can be accomplished easily in an 8-hour cycle without using water or ice – reducing shrimp spoilage from 30% to 0%.
Better Time Management Results in More Revenue
So what does Mendoza do with all of this extra time?
“You can do something with that time that’s going to be more effective,” he says. “I can use that spare time to do more work on my kitchen that needs help: create more checklists and systems that are needed.”
Because properly managing time results in better productivity and less waste, it’s easier to turn restaurants into healthier businesses. And with better financial footing, restaurants can have more resources to positively impact their community.
With the added revenue, Mendoza said he has been able to pay his employees more, offer them scholarship opportunities as well as give back to his local church.
“When you create efficiencies, you’re going to make more money,” Mendoza said. “And when you create more money, you can do something with that money – you can give back to the community.”
