Leading Experts in Restaurant Refrigeration and Coldrooms
Estimated reading time 5 minutes
A very important part of any restaurant is its refrigeration and coldroom facilities. As a restaurant owner, your restaurant refrigeration equipment is vital to the running of your business.
Refrigeration and coldroom facilities help preserve ingredients and food at ideal temperatures and prevent/slow bacterial growth, thereby keeping ingredients fresh and food safe to consume (within their expiration period). Without refrigeration, bacteria, which exists everywhere in nature, are free to grow contaminating food and putting customers at risk of food poisoning. When bacteria has the right temperature, nutrients (food) and moisture they can grow very quickly, increasing rapidly to the point where they can cause illness. Bacteria grow between 4.4°C and 60°C, sometimes doubling in numbers in as little as 20 minutes. Restaurant refrigeration set below 4.4°C helps to protect food and customers.
Restaurant Refrigeration Space
In order to determine the right kind of refrigeration equipment for your restaurant you need to look at your restaurant’s size, the amount of food you need to refrigerate/store, your food delivery schedule and the space available to you to install refrigeration.
The Right Type of Restaurant Refrigeration
There are many types of restaurant refrigeration available from stand alone refrigerators and freezers to refrigeration drawers, reach-in coolers to temperature controlled preparation areas and coldrooms. Below is a list of the most common types of refrigeration systems to help you decide which is best for your restaurant.
Stand Alone Refrigerators
Stand alone refrigerators are common across the restaurant trade. There are a variety of types of refrigerators from upright to preparation to under the counter. This type of refrigeration is essential to any business wishing to store their produce in optimal conditions for long periods of time.
Preparation refrigerators come in counter-top or under the counter varieties. They are extremely handy for food preparation areas, allowing the quick retrieval of refrigerated items during food preparation.
Stand Alone Freezers
Like stand alone refrigerators, stand alone freezers are common and like refrigerators there are a variety of types including upright, chest and under the counter.
Under the counter and upright freezers provide compact solutions for storing frozen food. Chest freezers take up more space but usually provide more storage space. Under the counter freezers are popular in preparation areas allowing easy access for food preparation.
Refrigerated/Temperature Controlled Preparation Counters/Areas
If you work in the catering trade having a temperature controlled preparation counter/area is especially useful when food needs to be kept cool/cold while it is being prepared e.g. in the preparation of sandwiches, salads and pizzas.
Blast Chillers
As previously mentioned bacteria can grow between 4.4°C and 60°C. Food cooked and left between these temperatures can, within a couple of hours, become unfit for human consumption. It is therefore vital to rapidly reduce the temperature of food which will not be used straight away if it is to be stored and used later.
Simply putting food into a fridge or freezer is not viable as the temperature will decrease slowly and condensation, caused by the moisture in the food escaping as it cools, can enable bacterial growth. Instead a blast chiller works by blowing cold air over the food to reduce its temperature quickly. This means that bacteria are not given the time and opportunity to grow and the flow of air stops condensation from forming on or around the food.
Many restaurants use blast chillers to prepare food in bulk to be used later. Having the ability to rapidly cool food and to keep it chilled or frozen keeps pre-cooked food in premium condition.
Coldrooms
Coldrooms provide the perfect refrigeration solution when a standard fridge will not suffice. They are ideal for restaurants where there is a larger scale need for food storage and are used to store large boxes and other bulky containers of perishable food. They are usually kitted out with racks to enable easy storage, rotation of stock and to help facilitate food retrieval.
Coldrooms are usually custom built and require custom installation.
Mobile Coldrooms/Cold Stores
Where a temporary cold store solution is required for chilling and freezing food e.g. at catering events or food markets, a mobile cold store can be the perfect solution.
Synecore’s mobile fridge freezer trailer can be delivered to where ever it is required and comes with fully integrated overhead lighting, secure shelving and removable strip curtains to prevent fluctuation in temperature while the door is open. The dual refrigeration plant offers chilling temperatures of +1˚C to +4˚C and freezing from -18˚C to -21˚C.
Restaurant Refrigeration Design and Installation Specialists
Synecore is an established providers of commercial refrigeration to restaurants across Kent, London and the UK. From small coldrooms and blast chillers to food preparation production areas, we can design and install refrigeration systems that meet all your business’s needs, and which can be relied upon to work efficiently. We also keep up to date with changes to legislation that impact the refrigeration industry and to ensure full FGas compliance.
Synecore works with the largest refrigeration manufacturers in the UK including Hubbard, J&E Hall, Copeland, Bitzer and Searle installing only the highest quality equipment, guaranteed by trusted manufacturers.
If you’re looking to install restaurant refrigeration or need to replace or maintain your current refrigeration system please contact our team or call on 01795 509 509.
