If you have recently joined the catering industry – perhaps you own your own little bistro or café – then you will likely be using a professional catering fridge in order to keep all your ingredients fresh. For efficiency, convenience and quality when cooking, it is important to keep your commercial fridge well-organised.
Here are our top tips on how to efficiently use and organise your catering fridge.
Organisation
Shelf Order & Spacing
When storing food in your commercial fridge, it is best to have designated shelves for specific categories of food and ingredients.
It is important to store any raw meats on the lowest shelf in your catering fridge, away from ready-to-eat foods in order to avoid cross contamination. Storing meat at the top of the fridge means blood or juices would be able to drip down onto any food on the shelves below, and storing meat on the same shelf as these would allow for an easier transfer of bacteria.
Fruit and veg should be stored all together on another shelf, likewise dairy products and other ready-to-eat foods. It is also important to leave space between these items, in order to allow for airflow to effectively circulate around all the food inside. This prevents uneven cooling, which could affect both the lifespan of your fresh produce as well as making your refrigerator work harder and being more prone to damage, which would then need to be repaired more often.
It is also important to keep delicate produce away from the fan in your refrigerator (such as fresh greens) as the fans in commercial fridges are extremely powerful and can damage such ingredients.
Use By Dates
Whenever you receive a delivery of new ingredients, it is important to revolve the order of the food inside your fridge so that the newer produce is at the back and the older at the front. This will save you money since you will be using your ingredients before they go off rather than wasting them by not using them in order.
Clearly labelling the use by date of all your ingredients will allow you and any chefs working with you in the kitchen to obviously see whether they need to be used up or thrown away and to indicate when new stock needs to be ordered. Likewise, if you put any prepared food in the fridge, it is good practice to note both the prepared date and the use by date from then.
The Benefits
By organising your catering fridge in these ways, you are utilising the available space effectively, preserving the quality of your food for as long as possible. Furthermore, it will allow for smoother operation in your kitchen; both you and any chefs will be able to see where all ingredients in your fridge are and will learn to know where everything belongs. This allows for efficient cooking as well as efficient stock control.
By having an organised fridge, you can also be reassured that you will be serving quality food to your customers made with fresh and safe to eat ingredients, which will be reflected in the dishes you serve them. Afterall, customer satisfaction is the key to success for any food business.
Commercial Refrigeration Gloucester
If you are based in Gloucester and looking for your commercial fridge to be installed and/or serviced, Mitchells has the team of specialists you should turn to. We are able to work on commercial fridges across all industries – our experience and knowledge is unmatched.
Our other services include air conditioning and heating servicing.
Contact us today with your enquiry, we are always happy to help.