Cooking in commercial restaurant becomes an impossible job without proper equipment such as exhaust hood. Moreover, the restaurant owners must meet health and safety codes. Thus, careful shopping of cooking equipment is of utmost importance.
Over the past decade, the restaurant business has been changing with the innovations in cooking equipment and advent of ghost kitchen and cloud kitchen. These are the future of commercial cooking and the cooking equipment industry must be ready for it.
According to Allied Market Research, the global commercial cooking equipment market is expected to reach $12.9bn by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 5.2% from 2021 to 2027. Expansion of the food service industry, product innovations, and surge in number of quick service restaurants have boosted the growth of the market.
If you are even remotely related to restaurant business, you know that the market is driven by technological innovations and surge in consumer demand for quick delivery. Thus, the companies in the cooking equipment market have invested a tremendous amount of money to launch the products that nobody even knew that they were needed.
What’s more, after the launch of such innovative cooking equipment, customers can no longer live without them. Just like any other industry, the commercial cooking equipment industry is transformed by innovations in automation, cutting-edge appliances, and digital sensors. All these innovations are centred to make cooking easier and without hassle. So how would the futuristic commercial kitchens look like?
Innovations in commercial ovens
Heating meals and ingredients is the most time consuming yet fundamental process in restaurant kitchens. Thus, innovation in ovens for restaurant purposes was much needed. Multi-purpose ovens that can do the job of kettle, steamer, fryers, dehydrator, and smoke will gain attention in the future. Moreover, the commercial ovens integrated with digital technology in order to offer chefs flexibility will hit the market. These equipment will allow chefs to cook food to perfection.
Automation in dishwasher
Currently, restaurants use automated, conveyor belt dishwashers for convenience they offer. However, in the future, dishwasher would save labor and time. In fact, many cooking equipment manufacturing companies have launched smart dishwashers that use water and energy sensibly, aiming at achieving complete efficiency.
3D printing and food
This could be the most out-of-the-box idea for commercial cooking. Food printing is the latest innovation that can allow chefs to print the food with the feature of customising flavour and nutritional content and meet customer expectation perfectly. This could be the game changer in the restaurant industry as the customer will get exactly what they ordered within a few minutes.
Internet of things (IoT) and cooking equipment
It does not take a genius to figure out that IoT will infiltrate the restaurant business and commercial kitchens. The addition of few sensors to conventional cooking equipment could save a lot of time and energy. The opportunities and benefits of IoT-based cooking equipment are limitless and astonishing. Chefs can remotely monitor the food, save electricity, fuel, and time of cooking a dish. Moreover, restaurant can save a ton of food wastage with such cooking equipment.
Flexible cooking equipment
The restaurant business has always been more adaptable than any other industry across the globe and the reason is customer demand for flexibility. It may be in terms of service style of cooking equipment. Thus, chefs are more inclined to use cooking equipment that offer utmost flexibility. Moreover, the rise in awareness about sustainability and utility costs have given flexibility more importance than ever.
While such innovations have hit the market, the most challenging aspect is cost of such novel cooking equipment. The high cost of cooking equipment has hampered the market. However, cooking equipment manufacturers have worked hard to tackle this issue by developing new schemes of financing, interest-free packages, and leasing to increase the use of technologically-advanced cooking equipment. The Covid-19 pandemic hit the foodservice industry hard and from cooking equipment manufacturers to restaurant owners and chefs are looking for new ways to dive back in. Moreover, there is drastic change in purchasing pattern as well. More and more restaurant owners are more inclined to invest in new kitchen if financial options are affordable and available. The leasing scheme has seen to be profitable in the case of refrigeration manufacturers. Thus, other cooking equipment manufacturing are now following the same route to reach more customers irrespective of their financial background and scale.
Overall, the commercial cooking equipment trends to watch for are focused on reducing labor, energy, food wastage, and space in the kitchen. These trends will follow the food and beverage trends and will evolve to meet ever-changing customer expectations and demands. However, the smarter technology will continue to change the commercial kitchens and its cooking equipment surely.
