This is the first post of my new commercial food service equipment blog. As a professional working in the field, I hope that I can keep everyone informed and entertained with all the latest information, technology and trends in the food service and equipment industry. If you are reading this and have any questions regarding commercial equipment, regulations,        kitchen fitouts, or even just out of curiosity, please feel free to email me at any time and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Commercial equipment isn't just my business, it's my passion. I have been kicking around in the food business since I was 12 working summer holidays in my uncles butcher shop. Through the years i have worked in restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels and in food manufacturing (meat processing and bakery). The one thing that always fascinated me was the equipment. Everything was over sized and over powered to my perspecive. As the years went on and I understood more about how equipment worked and what part it played in the machinery of a business, I came to appreciate that it wasn't over sized, just high capacity. One burner on a commercial cook top can put out more energy than 4 burners on a domestic stove, a commercial dishwasher can wash 18 dinner plates in 90 seconds, a 'small' commercial mixer is 20 litres!  This size and scale is nothing compares to the food manufacturing where mixers can produce a 120kg dough in 3 minutes and slicers can cut 400 rashers of bacon a minute and neatly lay it on a conveyor belt, but that's another story for another day.

With the advent of the celebrity chef, every day people are now getting involved in our industry. Many are unfortunately being taken for a ride by unscrupulous sales people and the ever present 'second hand' dealers. They may think they are getting a bargain, but realistically, they are usually buying a lemon. If a Skope commercial fridge (which is what many large drink companies like Coca Cola use) is valued at $4000+, how can anyone expect the $2000 cheapo import to last as long? Most people fall for the 'it's just a fridge' line and then find that warranty, parts, and service are not available or at least easily accessible.

Then there is second hand. I recently heard from one of my dealers that one of their clients was going to buy a second hand dishwasher. Apparently, it was in great nick and only a few years old. Great! The guy got a bargain!. I asked the dealer what happened next time I saw him. It turns out that the unit came out of one of the busiest public event locations in the country (calling it 'used' was an understatement), was so old that parts were not readily available, and those parts that were available were prohibitively expensive. In the end, to get the machine up and running would have cost almost as much as the new model. Commercial equipment is built tough with proper thickness high grade Stainless Steel so even after 20 years of service, it can still look to be in good condition.A second hand unit can sometimes be a good buy, but as with a used car, you want to know who's been at the wheel, where it's been, and how it's been used.

Another issue which is often over looked is the total cost of ownership for the life of the machine. If you were to compare a 15 year old dishwasher to a brand new one, your running costs could be reduced by up to 70%. How much can it cost to run a dishwasher? An older design unit can use any where between 4 and 10 litres of water per cycle (wash). This water needs to be paid for, heated, dosed with chemicals, and in some jurisdiction a waste fee can be charged. When you consider that an average sized establishment can do up to 60 cycles per day, it adds up. A modern unit can produce a better wash whilst only using 1.5 to 2.5 litres per cycle. This can add up to thousands of dollars in some cases making the new option cheaper than the second hand option within a few months of operation. The prevailing attitude in Australia has always been 'flog it until it's dead'. What mast people don't think is that even though the unit is still working, the running costs may out weigh any savings made by not upgrading.

My hope is that this blog can help educate and inform both those in the industry and looking to get into our industry to make wise choices wehin it comes to their tools.