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A catering business is run successfully with the help of efficient and necessary catering appliances. Different catering businesses have different demands depending upon the type of food they are serving. There is a wide range of commercial catering appliances available in the market designed specifically for different types of food products.
The variety of catering appliances is divided into two basic categories: catering fridges and catering freezers.
Common features of catering appliances:
There are certain things that are common in all types of catering appliances like keeping the food chilled and safe, insulated interior, durability and strong stainless steel exterior. All of the refrigeration appliances require a proper ventilation for efficiency of compressor. The compressor may be placed on the top of the appliance, at its sides or at the bottom. The temperature range of fridges is 3 F to 40 F, while the freezers have a temperature range of -10 F to 0 F.
Here are some of the different types of catering appliances to choose from.
Reach-in refrigerators and freezers:
These reach-in refrigerators and freezers are upright cold storage appliances. They are highly suitable if you are short of space because they have a small footing. They either have soli stainless steel doors or glass doors. The glass door ones can be used as display refrigerators. They are either equipped with full doors or half doors. They can have multiple sections and its storage capacity is calculated by cubic feet. You can make a rough estimate of the capacity from the number of doors of reach-in refrigerators. They are available with single, double or even triple doors. Their compressor is either top mount or bottom mount.
Walk-in refrigerators and freezers:
Walk-in refrigerators and freezers are for storing large amounts of cold storage space. There is a commercial shelving systems installed inside these refrigerators and freezers for storing food in an organized manner. The shelving is installed for optimal usage of storage space. They are excellent for storing boxed food items and they mostly have their own floors but it can also be installed on the existing floor.
Refrigerated prep tables:
Refrigerated prep tables are designed for cook line or the food preparation area. There are two main versions of these products: sandwich/ salad tables and pizza tables. The ingredients are kept fresh and cold with the help of cold rails. The storage is provided below and are equipped with traditional storage place and pans. The prep table for pizza has a much larger cutting board as compared to the salad prep table. They are designed as worktops.
Undercounter refrigerators and freezers:
The functioning of undercounter appliances is just like the upright refrigerators and freezers. Their height is much less than the reach-in appliances. They can be put in to small spaces which makes it highly suitable for commercial kitchens and keep food products on as-needed basis.
Bar refrigeration:
These refrigerators are available in several different types like back bar coolers, plate chillers, keg coolers, wine coolers etc. they are mostly made up of stainless steel or black vinyl exterior.
Refrigerated merchandisers:
Merchandising refrigerators are designed to display food products with either an open front or glass doors. They keep the food items are kept frozen and displayed beautifully to attract the customers.
Ice machines:
They have a condensing unit and ice-making section as an integrated part. It can store the ice and also dispense it. If you want an ENERGY STAR refrigerator, then choose the one with air-cooled ice machines because water-cooled ice machines are not qualified as ENERGY STAR appliance. They Energy STAR appliances are much more energy efficient.
