What is the most expensive, high maintenance, mission critical item in your kitchen? Your chef, closely followed by sous chefs, commis chefs, kitchen porters (KP), and so on. Your beloved walk-in cold storage is cheaper to buy, maintain, and run. Are constant wipe downs a good use of their time? Yes, if you want to be sure your products leave the kitchen environment safely and hygienically. What other choice do you have?
Kitchens are fast & productive environments. Equal to the level of food they produce is the level of dirt they create in this process. Constant cleaning is a side effect of this process and this need is greatest at the fry and grill stations. Fat, smoke & steam carry grease onto every surface and then air-borne dirt sticks to this accumulating continually throughout a shift. The responsibility for keeping this clean throughout the shift should lie with the chef at this station or the KP. However, this isn’t always possible during busy shifts. Sadly, it is then when you need it most.
Modern technology has the answer. In fact, the answer has been in many washroom environments for a long time. This time physics is the answer rather than chemistry. This comes with an added advantage of lowering the amount of cleaning chemicals that you need to use in your kitchen area. Utilising ultraviolet oxidation and UV photolysis allows for pro-active, automated, cleaning throughout your shifts. No matter how busy the shift your integrated UV systems will reduce your cleaning needs to a simple wipe down. Even in the fastest shifts this is achievable with little thought or effort by any member of your kitchen team allowing your staff to work with a food centric focus.
“How does it work?” I hear you ask. There are several parts to our solution. Let’s move back to the fry station. The goal of the extractor hood is to draw away as much of this issue as possible into a manageable position. The baffles, in the hood, are designed to capture much of this dirt. The smaller particles, however, pass through this system and accumulate in the ducts. This creates dirt, odours and, potentially, fires. An integrated UV solution oxidises this dirt turning it into low-combustion ash. In turn this lowers the fire risk and ensures a simple wipe down at the end of a shift provides an effective clean. Our “OGR” (Oil, Odour and Grease Removal) solution provides up to 95% reduction in airborne pollutants, grease, kitchen oils and other chemicals in your kitchen. This cleaner solution also reduces the frequency with which you need to wipe down other surfaces too.
Implementing an HVAC based air purification solution will support larger catering projects by cleaning the circulated air. This reduces the volume of grease, dirt and pollutants that settle on your preparation surfaces. By reducing the frequency of surface cleaning throughout a shift your key personnel can concentrate on producing the great food to keep your customers coming back. It will also help keep your hygiene standards to the high levels that your customers deserve to expect.
There’s more! We even have your ice production covered! Cleaning ice machines is a complex job that ensures your ice is not carrying bacteria or viruses. Professional catering uses ice throughout all environments and almost all customers will consume ice. By retrofitting our IceZone solution you can significantly reduce your cleaning time. You can be confident that even the darkest corners of your ice machine are not harbouring a potential business threatening bug. In studies using UV based cleaning in your ice machines reduces the cleaning and maintenance windows by up to 60%. Most customers see a full ROI on this implementation within the first year of use.
Zenith Washroom Solutions enjoys a wide range of experience in supporting clean catering environments. With clients ranging from the cosy, intimate, unique restaurants all the way to country-wide household names we have implemented our UV based cleaning solutions to all levels of catering. Contact Zenith Washrooms today and we can help you use cool physics to ensure you get the best ROI out of your most important assets, your wonderful kitchen staff.
