Banqueting Systems : CESA Energy Efficient Catering Equipment Showcase

Energy Focus

August 08 - Fast Food

Fast food has become a bit of a misnomer: associated with burgers and chips, it equally applies to a host of other quick, easy to serve meals. Quick service is a more accurate description. It can be prepared quickly and covers a wider range from fries to salads, burgers to baguettes. Full article ...

WEEE

Advice to Final Users

WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. The legislation took effect from 1st July 2007 and states that, under certain circumstances, the final user of a piece of electrical or electronic equipment (EEE) can get it collected and recycled at no charge at the end of its life. Full article ...

Energy Bar

If using separate equipment for each process ensure each is operating at its peak performance.

Combi-ovens make an energy efficient way of both pre-cooking and regenerating the food before the event. If you then transfer the meals into a mobile heated trolley that is an extra energy requirement that needs to be calculated in. An alternative is to use a mobile regen oven so the heat used to cook the food provides a boost to keep it warm prior to serving.

One simple tip is that if you have a large regen oven but you're only doing a small function, fill the empty shelves with empty plates. This helps distribute the heat evenly.

Heat loss during transfer to the function room is an area where energy saving measures can pay dividends. Considering the route the trolley takes from kitchen to dining area and minimising transfer time can, over a year, make surprising savings both in energy and staff costs.

Banqueting Systems

Banqueting Systems Banqueting can be a stressful form of catering - serving top quality food to hundreds of diners at the same time can be a logistical nightmare. Large banqueting venues can serve tens of thousands of meals over the Christmas and the New Year period alone, so forward planning is essential. A few extra hours spent in preparation can make all the difference between a manic scramble at the end or what diners perceive as a seamless event.

Increasingly caterers are turning to cook-chill as the way forward. Provided the caterer knows numbers well in advance this method produces better food with less waste. Portion control is easy, time can be spent on presentation and on the big day food just has to be re-heated and taken to the table.

Cook-chill introduces three main steps into the banqueting operation. First the food is pre-cooked in an oven and then rapidly chilled in a blast chiller. For storage, the chilled food has then to be transferred into a refrigerated unit. On the day of the banquet the food needs to be transferred once again to an oven - either a regeneration oven or a combi-oven - to be heated up prior to serving.

For those going down this route there are two options. One is to build up the banqueting system from separate pieces of equipment - oven, refrigeration unit, blast chiller, regen oven and possibly heated trolleys or cupboards. The advantage of this is that you may already have some of this equipment and can just invest in perhaps a simple mobile heated trolley to move the food into position for serving.

Another option is a high-tech multifunction mobile unit combining a rapid-chiller, fridge, regen oven and hot cupboard in one. These offer big savings in time spent handling the meals - once plated up they remain in the same unit for chilling, regen and rolling into the function room. This type of multi-function unit also frees up other kitchen equipment in the run up to the big function.