The main feature of the existing Brantwood Farm Bakery is preprepared pies and donuts! Working with Legge Design, we are reusing equipment to save on costs and building a much more functional and larger space!
We interviewed Scott Legge from Legge Foodservice Facilities Design to discuss important considerations for your commercial kitchen designs. First, we'll cover the code requirements and then move on to the fun part, which includes design principles and tips at the end.
The Team
Of course, hiring an expert team is a good start. They know equipment inside and out, flow, and codes. But you know your menu, needs, and pet peeves, so your input or the chef’s is important. If you have an operator, food purchaser, and servers, these are all great people to consult with as you design your space.
You might be surprised that you also need a mechanical engineer. A kitchen consultant designs the surfaces of the kitchen and food areas, and the mechanical engineer designs the HVAC equipment for air and temperature control.
First, let’s define a commercial kitchen. It is any food preparation place that prepares food for the public. This includes restaurants, value-added kitchens, bakeries, etc. So, pretty much anything except your home kitchen (unless you plan to make and sell products to the public.
Health Department & Codes
Let’s start with the authorities. Unlike the building code, but like the fire code, the health code is always in effect, not just when you build. You will require regular inspections and certificates for safe food handling. From a health code and building code perspective, here is a list of things you will need:
- A handwashing sink with HOT water, soap, and paper towels within a ‘reasonable” distance from working areas.
- Cleanable surfaces – This needs to include equipment, work surfaces, walls, floors, and ceilings. Avoid places where food, dust, and grease can collect or that are hard to clean. Wood, GWB, and concrete require special paints or coatings to make them washable.
- Clean up—All cleaning of dirty items requires a wash, rinse, and sanitize basin, a three-basin sink, or 2+ sanitizing in a commercial dishwasher.
- Barrier-free design—The building code requires aisle widths of 1100mm for barrier-free access. We and most building officials recognize that it is nearly impossible to build a truly accessible commercial kitchen, which is one of the basics. Adjustable work tables are also a good option.
- Prep sinks must be separate from hand wash and cleaning sinks. Thus, most commercial kitchens will have at least three sinks.
- Indirect drains—An indirect drain is a drain that is separated from the sewer system drain pipes by at least a 1” air gap. It is often called a funnel floor drain. All the sewage piping in a building is connected together at some point. Therefore, every device or sink that contains food must be indirectly drained so that if there is a sewage backup, the overflow will not end up contaminating food. Handwash and dishwashing sinks can be connected directly to the sewer pipe system.
- Grease interceptor – grease, as you know, solidifies in cold water and clogs up pipes, sewers, and especially rural septic systems. A grease interceptor is used to settle grease and break it down with enzymes so that the grease doesn’t end up in your septic system. A grease interceptor is required when any grease is being used in the kitchen. I would challenge you to show me a kitchen that doesn’t have a single bottle of oil in it! So basically, every kitchen will require a grease interceptor. It's for your own good, as septic fixing will be much more costly than fixing the grease interceptor. There are underfloor and on-floor options. The on-floor options tend to be messier, grosser, and harder to clean. It gets pumped out at regular intervals.
Ventilation Hoods, NFPA, Fire suppression, Grease laden vapours
Brooks farm ventilation hood over temporary cooking equipment and future griddle for pancakes!
Okay, I know you are waiting for it: NFPA hood protection, sprinkled hoods, grease-laden vapours. You’ve probably heard these dreaded terms thrown around, and dollar signs flash before your eyes. So, what does this really mean? They are code requirements, and there are two aspects to this requirement: ventilation and fire protection.
Ventilation is required for all commercial cooking equipment, open or closed. This means ovens, cooking surfaces, grills, griddles, fryers, sometimes even toasters. The reason for this is air quality, humidity control, odour control, and gas fume extraction. Some cooking equipment these days is now deemed “ventless” and is certified not to require the vent hood. These pieces of equipment basically contain their own internal filtering. In addition to a very large air extraction hood, you also need a make-up air system to match the air you are sucking out.
TIP: make sure the incoming air is tempered up to temperature otherwise, you will have condensation issues in the kitchen! The mechanical engineer comes in here to size the fan equipment for both outgoing and incoming air.
The other half of the ventilation is fire protection.
Just because a cooking appliance needs ventilation doesn’t mean it needs fire protection. Fire protection is required in the case of surface cooking that produces grease-laden vapour (as you probably know, grease fires are disastrous).
So basically, open cooking surfaces will require fire protection (despite the menu planned). This would include open grills, griddles, BBQs, open flames, gas appliances, etc. The good news is that installing an actual water sprinkler system is outdated, and typically, an independent wet or dry chemical system can be used instead. This saves rural projects a lot of costs in water supply and equipment.
However, the bad news is that most kitchens will likely trigger the fire protection under the hood and within the ductwork. This helps suffocate a fire at a VERY likely source quickly before it spreads. It is actually a way to protect your building investment!
Lastly, if you change the kitchen layout, you will also need to change the hood. So think this through very carefully as it's one of the most expensive aspects of the kitchen. And don’t jury-rig the system later. It won’t work, doesn’t meet the code, won’t protect you and your investment, and may void your insurance.
Design considerations
Now, the fun part is designing the space. There are a few principles to keep in mind when designing.
- Create your menu for now and in the next 10 years. This forms the basis for the equipment and layout of the design.
The flow of food through the kitchen
2. Food should always move in a forward direction. Thinking about all aspects of the flow. From receiving to storage (cold, frozen, wet, and dry), to prep, prepped storage, cooking/production (many subgroups to production), plating, serving, and finally dirty/wash. Think of it like an assembly line in a factory; you should not send the part backward to perform an action, only forward.
3. The next principle you want to follow is to minimize cross-contamination. This can take various forms, such as cross-contamination between clean and dirty dishes, people, and food. You also want to avoid the cross-contamination of raw and prepared food.
4. Grouping of functions. In larger or specific kitchens, group-like equipment for a particular aspect of production is used together. This means all the bakery needs, all the prep needs, and all the canning needs. This seems common sense, but it is a good way to organize. Arrange the group beside other similar groups that might share equipment.
5. Flexibility in smaller kitchens is key. In a smaller kitchen or one with a more varied menu, you need to build in flexibility. Put things on wheels (castors) so you can rearrange them. This also really helps with cleanability.
6. Safety is sometimes an afterthought, but a kitchen can be a dangerous workplace.
- a. First, make sure the aisles are wide enough to avoid splash when you walk by and to allow two people to pass safely beside each other. 48” is suitable for most areas and is a balance between step efficiency and safety.
- b. Non-slip floors are the other major safety concern. Tiles are durable but can become slippery, cracked, and non-cleanable. Epoxy can crack over time, resulting in cleanliness issues. Sheet vinyl is also an option. There are three classifications for slip resistance. Ask your flooring supplier for the rating.
- i. ASTMD10-27 slip testing, .5 or greater be slip resistant
- ii. Ramp test - R-rating R12 is the highest rating
- iii. pendulum test 36+ (certified safety min.) or 55+
7. Keep warm food warm and cold food cold. We often think about keeping our food warm after being cooked but often forget how to keep cold-prepped food cold. Yogurt parfaits or fruit should go into a separate fridge for serving after being prepared.
There are a few popular kitchen aspects I want to touch on quickly.
Wood-fired oven or Outdoor Kitchen
Outdoor woodfired pizza oven at Dark Horse Estate Winery. Complete with wood storage compartments!
Wood-fired pizza ovens
– Although it is very neat, it can be very challenging indoors due to the apparent “fire” hazard. The ventilation can be quite costly, and don’t forget about the wood storage and chopping ;)
Many of these style ovens can also be purchased in gas making it much easier to install.
Outdoor kitchens
– There are no code requirements for bugs, flies, etc. The safe food handling certificate and training will give you guides, but an open, uncovered kitchen is feasible. Once you start to put it under a pavilion, you may start to trigger the ventilation and fire protection requirements again to ensure that vapours and smoke are pulled away and fire is quickly dealt with. But the hardest part is you still need water, hot water for handwashing, 3-basin sinks for cleaning, and a prep sink. Sinks trigger septic systems, which is a costly endeavour for our rural projects. If you have other unique scenarios, reach out to us.
I hope that helps you understand your kitchen from a code and design perspective. Thanks again to our agritourism dream team member, Legge Food Service facility design, for their input in this article and on our projects. Legge is independent when it comes to choosing a designer. That means you pay a little more for design, but you are not tied to a certain company's equipment or its prices!
Legge knows his equipment inside and out and can help you bring a project on budget and functional!