According to a repot of Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM), 7.5 million units of kitchen equipment were shipped by all US vendors in April 2013. This study also revealed that a total of 3.7 million units were sold during the first half of 2013. All catering establishments including hotels, restaurants, bakeries, and bars, require high quality commercial kitchen equipment. Installing the right kind of kitchen equipment can definitely help you make the best cuisine in minimum time.

If you’re interested in buying commercial kitchen equipment for your catering establishment, the following tips will help you in making the right decision:

Purpose: The first and most important thing to know is the kind of kitchen equipment you need. Whether it’s a dishwasher, oven, grill, glasswasher, refrigerator, stove and the list goes on and on. Each of these equipment has different functions in the kitchen and with right product information, you’ll be able to make the successful purchase. Once you establish the purpose for buying the equipment, you must also check your kitchen demands. If you have high demand then it’s much better to buy automated equipment wherever possible.

Size of the Appliances: It’s important consider the size of the appliances, especially if you have limited space. Large appliances will occupy a lot of space. So it’s best to choose equipment depending upon the amount of space available and their purpose.

Performance: Each equipment you buy has to perform optimally. Therefore, you should check the standards applicable to equipment of the respective type and confirm that the appliance you have chosen meets and then exceeds them, if possible. For example, a contact grill can cook meat with a thickness of one centimeter in just one minute. So if you can find an appliance that can do it more quickly without burning your meat, you should buy it.

Ease of Functionality: It’s preferable to choose kitchen appliance that’s easy to operate and is user friendly. Avoid all appliances that need complex and expensive installations. It’s also important to understand the complete functionality of the appliance before you start using it.

Durability: The commercial kitchen equipment you’re considering has to be durable and long lasting so that you can continue using it for years without paying for major replacements or repairs. You can evaluate the durability of appliance in different ways. Check the material it’s made from, its make and strength. Also take a look at warranty. Mostly, durable items come with a longer-term warranty.

Commercial kitchen equipment made of stainless steel is more popular because it’s more durable and much easier to clean and maintain. Many new kitchen appliances use state-of-the-art infra-red technology for faster production of high quality. Others have self cleaning features. Some of them are designed to save energy and water. This will help you save lots of money while protecting the environment.

Warranty: You should enquire all about the warranty of the kitchen equipment you’re interested in buying. Usually there are standard warranties for commercial kitchen equipment and most of these years last for several years. There are many manufactures that offer warranty on replacement parts with others having much longer warranties for specific parts than others.

All these aspects will also influence how much you’re going to spend on your kitchen equipment. It’s worth noting that some of the expensive kitchen equipment comes with better and longer warranties than some of the cheaper equipment. This doesn’t mean that your restaurant is doomed if you do not go for the more expensive kitchen appliance. A competitively priced quality kitchen equipment will offer you better returns on investment and will last for years without any need for repair or maintenance.

Catering requires a lot of preparation in order to make an event however small or large a success. A caterer basically carries an event because if the food is a mess or presented in an unsightly way then the guests will not have anything good to say about the event even if the rest of it was a raging success. Since the key to pulling off anything without a glitch is preparation having a cool room at your disposal will go a long way towards ensuring that your food is fresh and everything that is being served tastes exactly as it should. 

The preservation of your food is just as important as its presentation preparation. For the latter steps there is a lot of catering equipment that is needed from the refrigeration, cooking equipment, utensils, food storage items, cookware, table top ware, baking equipment, barware, display and serving equipment, hygiene and safety equipment and beverage equipment. All these are necessary to help make your work a little easier and ease the pressure that comes with catering. If you own a sizable catering company then a commercial cool room may be a big necessity to enable you to cater for your large clientele. However large freezer or pallet rooms are not the only cool room solutions available if you are a small company or just starting out. It is possible to have under the bench refrigerators which may be enough if you are a one-person catering company.

Large commercial cool rooms do however have more going for them like self evaporation units that don’t require drainage points and more powerful keeping food for longer. They also provide more storage space which can really come in handy especially if dealing with a number of events in the same period of time. Most are easy to assemble and do not require any cutting or screwing together of panels.