One of the places where you cannot be unorganized is a commercial kitchen. The size of your commercial kitchen, the size of your staff team, and your storage will all impact productivity.
But rest assured, if you aren’t organized within your commercial kitchen, you will likely have unhappy customers, the possibility of injuring your workers, and not being as productive as you could be.
Learning how to organize your commercial kitchen isn’t tricky; even if you have been running a commercial kitchen for some time or are new to you, these tips can work for anybody.
Easy Reach
One of the most important things you can do is have everything you need within easy reach. In the middle of cooking, the last thing you want to do is to go out of your way to find the most frequently used items.
Often the most frequently used items are cooking utensils and pots and pans. You can use a stainless steel rack to store your pots and pans within easy reach. While hanging cooking utensils above your workstation can make this process even smoother.
Zoning
Each of your kitchen areas should have a designated zone. This means having a space for the 4th largest utensils like a food processor and mixer, a place designed for smaller items, and even a site for your specialist equipment.
Zoning in the kitchen helps your equipment stay organized, but it will also help your staff keep focused on the area they need to be in.
Large restaurants, as you know, have a designated station for pasta cooking, fish, sweets and pastries, and preparation.
Food Organization
If you haven’t got a well-organized refrigerator or freezer, you’ll find that you are using food in the wrong order. You should be preparing and serving food in order of expiration date. If you use the food in the wrong order, you risk contamination and illness.
It is straightforward to implement a first-in, first-out method. Every time you have a new item, you place it towards the back of the refrigerator. This means that the food that needs to be cooked earliest will be at the front and within easy reach.
Labels
If you don’t have clear storage food boxes and clear jars come out, you will have to have everything labeled. Labeling is one of the best ways to organize a commercial kitchen very quickly.
Anything that has been prepared can have a label attached to its front, which makes it easy to grab.
A commercial kitchen is a fast-paced environment, and you cannot afford not to be well organized and have the right attitude towards storage and cleanliness. It is your job to make sure that a kitchen is a well-oiled machine. A commercial kitchen benefits from having the proper storage in the right place. So next time you head to the kitchen, keep in mind any processes that could be made smoother by implementing organizational tips.
