Commercial Kitchen Accessories

More than most people budget for, because it's a long list of cheap items instead of a few big ones. Pans, knives, boards, gastronorm pans, crockery, cutlery, chemicals and bins add up quickly. REO prices on cookware, utensils, storage and cleaning products are sharp, and ordering the whole list in one go usually works out cheaper than buying pieces as each gap appears.

The large equipment can be rented instead. With Silverchef Rent-Try-Buy you rent the oven, the fridge or the dishwasher, so the cash you were going to spend on it stays free for the rest of the fit-out. The rental payments are an operating expense, and you can buy the machine out or move up to a bigger one as the venue grows.

Buy the pans from the same supplier as the appliance they go into, whether that's the fridge, the bain marie or the oven. Gastronorm is a standard size, but slight differences between brands mean the fit isn't guaranteed.

Brands work to slightly different lips, radiuses and flanges, and a couple of millimetres is enough to matter. A pan from another brand can sit proud in a bain marie, catch on the runners in a prep fridge, or fail to seat properly on an oven rack. If you already own the appliance and you're topping up pans, tell us the make and model and we'll match them for you.

Start from the full size 1/1 pan, which fills the well. The fractions — 1/2, 1/3, 1/6 and 1/9 — split that same footprint up, and you can mix them across one bain marie or prep fridge and change the layout when the menu changes. Length and width are fixed by the standard, so depth is where orders go wrong. Measure the usable depth of the well or the drawer, not the outside of the unit.

Deep pans hold more, but they heat and chill slowly through the middle, so several shallow pans beat one deep pan for hot holding and for getting food cold. Buy the lids at the same time, because an open gastronorm pan in a coolroom picks up odours and dries out on top.

Pick by the job. Stainless steel takes the beating of a commercial line, deglazes properly and goes through the dishwasher, so it's the default for saute pans, saucepans, stew pans and stockpots. Aluminium heats faster and weighs a lot less, which suits high-turnover work where someone is lifting the pan all service. Non-stick is the right choice for eggs, crepes and delicate fish, but treat it as a consumable, because metal utensils, a hot empty pan and a commercial dishwasher all shorten its life.

If you're running induction, check the base before you order. If a magnet grips the bottom firmly the pan will work on it. Plain aluminium and some stainless bases won't, and the pans that are made for induction say so.

In a commercial kitchen, yes. A colour coded set is the simplest way to show an inspector that raw and ready-to-eat work are being kept apart, and Hygiplas sets come with a wall chart, so the coding is up at the bench instead of in a folder. High density boards resist scoring and suit heavy chopping, and low density boards are kinder to your knife edges and suit lighter prep.

Store boards in a rack, not in a stack, because a stack traps water between the boards and a stainless rack keeps each one drying on its edge. Boards are a consumable, so once the surface is deeply scored and won't clean back smooth, replace it.

One digital probe thermometer per section is the working minimum. Colour coded or water resistant probes make life easier, because the probe moves between raw and cooked product all shift, and your temperature records are only as good as the probe they came off.

Calibrate them yourself. Iced water should read close to 0°C and boiling water close to 100°C, and a probe that drifts outside that goes in the bin. Keep a spare on hand as well, because a dead thermometer in the middle of service means the cook is guessing, and guessed core temperatures are exactly what an auditor picks up on.

Work from covers instead of seats, and allow for the plates sitting in the wash. Two to three times your seated covers is the normal starting point for plates and cutlery, and that assumes one sitting and a dishwasher that's keeping up. Go higher if you turn tables twice and can't wash in between.

Buy into one pattern where you can. Plates, bowls and platters that match each other stack, store and reorder cleanly, and chafers, risers and service utensils are easier to pair with them. Breakage is constant and a discontinued line leaves you with a mismatched pass, so order the same pattern in quantity and get a shelf of spares in before you open.

Oil filtration, and buy it at the same time as the fryer. Filtering the oil daily is the single biggest thing you can do about oil cost, and it keeps the fryer recovering properly between baskets, because clean oil moves heat better than oil full of carbon and crumb.

There is equipment for the whole cycle. FryMAX and Fry Essentials offer filter cones and cone holders for small sites, and filter powder satchels, filter carts and electric oil filter machines for higher volume, along with boil-out powder for when the vat is stripped down. Add a basket brush and a pair of heat-resistant gloves, then set the routine: filter at the end of each day, boil out on a fixed day each week, and turn the oil over on whatever schedule your volume calls for.

Insulated carriers first, matched to how the food travels. Top loading pan carriers take gastronorm pans straight out of the bain marie, which suits function and buffet work. Front loading carriers load like a cabinet and are better for plated meals. Soft insulated bags, including pizza and folding ones, suit courier work where the bag has to fold away in a car.

Then the packaging. Containers, cups, lids, cutlery and bags are all in with the disposables, and if you standardise on one container size the lids will interchange across the menu. Insulation only slows heat loss, it doesn't add any, so the food has to go in hot, and a probe thermometer lets you record the temperature at both ends of the trip.

Food grade surface sanitiser first. Concentrate in a drum is cheaper per litre if you've got somewhere safe to dilute and decant it. Ready-to-use bottles cost more, but they take the dilution mistake out of it, which matters when casual staff are making the bottles up. Then floor and surface cleaner, colour coded cloths, and bins sized to the space you've got, because slim bins fit the gaps beside benches where a standard bin won't go.

Add anti-fatigue matting to the order. A rubber anti-slip mat at the wash-up and in front of the fryer is the cheapest safety item in the kitchen, and a wet tiled floor beside a sink is where most kitchen falls happen. Jantex offers the sanitiser, the slim bins and the matting.