In our daily work and life, we often hear the term "central air conditioning", but rarely do we know what a central kitchen is. In this article, we will provide a brief introduction to what a central kitchen is, its functional area divisions, and its advantages. If you are also interested in central kitchen renovation, then keep reading!

What is A Central Kitchen?

In fact, the so-called central kitchen is a food distribution center. Its main task is to uniformly purchase food raw materials and process them into finished or semi-finished products. Then, the dishes are uniformly delivered to each chain store through a full hot chain, a full cold chain, or a combination of cold and hot chains for secondary heating or combination before being sold to customers.

For instance, well-known chain restaurants like KFC and McDonald's receive a huge number of customers every day. Without the support of a central kitchen, a single restaurant's kitchen cannot meet the high demand for meals. Through the central kitchen, a separate food processing place, chicken wings, chicken legs, and other ingredients can be processed into semi-finished products in advance and then transported to major chain stores in the city.

After arriving at the chain stores, the final process is completed, and they can be sold.   Therefore, we can see that the kitchens of chain stores like KFC are spotless, and the delivery time is also relatively fast.

Functional Area Division of The Central Kitchen

Now we know that the products of chain restaurants like KFC, McDonald's, and Zhenkungfu need the support of central kitchens. So, how are the functional areas of a central kitchen divided during its construction?

1. Cooking area: The cooking area is the main location for stir-frying and cooking. Besides preparing food and seasonings, this area also requires efficient commercial kitchen equipment and a reasonable central kitchen layout to make the entire workflow more rational and efficient.

2. Cleaning area: The cleaning area is used for washing dishes and tableware. It should be equipped with a sink and a commercial dishwasher to facilitate the cleaning of food and tableware.

3. Hot kitchen processing room: Large fast food chains will all be equipped with a hot kitchen processing room in the decoration of their central kitchens, which is mainly used for the cutting, temporary storage, and cooking of semi-finished products. The area of this functional room is generally large and needs to meet the requirements of a large demand for the operation area and complex production procedures.

4. Container loading room: The container loading room is generally equipped with one packaging conveyor line and six operation tables, which are used for the packaging and loading of finished products.

5. Storage Area: When designing the kitchen functional area, you need to consider where to store food, and the storage area should be convenient for access and not affect the use of other functional areas.

6. Temporary garbage storage area: Garbage cold storage, garbage treatment equipment, sterilization lamps, etc.

In general, the central kitchen layout is nothing more than dividing out dedicated working areas for different preparation stages, and each area needs to be equipped with different kitchen facilities according to the enterprise's requirements. Only in this way can it be regarded as an efficient central kitchen decoration.

What Are The Advantages of A Central Kitchen?

1. Stable taste: Simultaneously mass-producing finished or semi-finished products of the same flavor can ensure that the food tastes of each chain restaurant are more stable and uniform.

2. High quality: Large-scale food procurement can have a unified source, and this kind of procurement has relatively high standards for food production hygiene and safety, so the quality of food is relatively stable and excellent.

3. Cost reduction: By adopting a large number of production equipment, labor costs are saved. Moreover, a large quantity of purchased goods can reduce the cost of raw materials. Unified transportation can significantly reduce transportation costs.

4. Improving efficiency: With a high degree of mechanization, it greatly saves manpower, enables rapid and large-scale production of food, and promptly stores it in the configured frozen and refrigerated warehouses. And arrange transportation uniformly to save the inventory and shipping time of each service unit.

Conclusion

Nowadays, in chain restaurants, centralized supply kitchens are gradually increasing, and projects like central kitchens will also be increasingly needed. Chineng Central Kitchen can provide full kitchen customization services based on customers' demands and on-site environments. It offers three design options for central kitchen distribution production lines: full hot chain, full cold chain, or a combination of cold and hot chain. If you are interested in the central kitchen renovation projects and commercial kitchen equipment, please feel free to consult Chineng's online customer service to create a low-cost and high-efficiency central kitchen project that suits you.