The professional catering equipment you’ll need for a busy summer meal

Summer is a busy time, with people looking to enjoy the good weather and fresh seasonal produce. This leads to some truly delicious meals – often buffets – where the plates are piled high with delicious food and the service is quick and friendly.

For cafes, restaurants and catering companies, these meals are a great opportunity, but they also come with a mountain of organisational work. Aside from the cooking that goes into hosting a large group for lunch or dinner, it’s also important to make sure that all necessary food storage and service needs have been taken into account. These big occasions aren’t restricted to summer, and come along all throughout the year, so it’s well worth investing in the right equipment well before they arrive.

Working out what you need can be a bit of a mission, so the team at Comcater have put together this handy guide to the essential Cambro products that you’ll need at each step of the process.

STEP ONE: PREPARATION

As with all areas of commercial cooking, the success or failure of catering for big events largely comes down to how well you prepare. The main concerns here should be having enough food, and making sure that it stays fresh and tasty until it’s required. After all, there’s nothing worse than running out of a crowd favourite.

Storage is therefore the name of the game, and Cambro offers a range of solutions. The type of storage that you require will depend on your business, as well as the size of the group you’re catering to. For example, smaller functions may not require much more than a few insulated food carriers and boxes, while really big occasions will demand a complete commercial shelving fit out.

Regardless of which size and style of equipment you need, all of Cambro’s products are manufactured to the highest hygiene standards. Each unit, shelf or box is made from food-grade materials, and is fully compliant with Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) standards.

STEP TWO: SERVICE

Once the meal itself gets underway, your focus should shift to more practical pieces of catering equipment. For these large summer meals, typical cutlery and crockery often won’t cut the mustard, and there are a few reasons for this. Firstly, you simply may not have enough plates, knives and forks for all of your customers, but just as importantly with kids running around and everybody in a merry mood, you may just need some sturdier options.

Cambro can provide this, with an extensive table service range that is durable enough for even the most raucous groups, but still looks the part for fancier occasions. Of course, there are also more specialised pieces of equipment like plate heaters that might be necessary for certain events, and Cambro manufactures these as well.

STEP THREE: THE AFTERMATH

Once the satisfied masses have rolled out of your venue, you can turn your attention to cleaning up. In a perfect world, every morsel will have been devoured and you won’t have too much work to do. Typically though, there will be uncooked produce to save for next time and plenty of waste to dispose of. As with preparation, an easy-to-use storage system is your best friend here, especially if you’ve got multiple catering jobs in the space of a few days.

Regardless of which pieces of equipment you might be lacking, there’s a solution from Cambro. Best of all, you can now buy from the entire Cambro range through Comcater’s website. This makes it easier than ever to quickly get what you need – even if time is running out before the big day!

Check out the online selection today, and get in touch with Comcater if you have any questions by filling in the form on this page.