Fridges and freezers for your school kitchen

Spring is here, so hopefully some sun will come our way. But what does this mean for your school kitchen? When the thermometer starts racking up the extra degrees, it becomes even harder to keep your ingredients cool and fresh – that’s why you need the best fridges and freezers you can get!

But how do you know where to start? What makes a good fridge or freezer? Don’t worry, we’re here to help you choose!

5 questions to ask yourself when finding fridges and freezers for your school kitchen

Ask yourself these five questions before you take the plunge and start looking for new equipment for your school kitchen:

1. How much space do you have?

Measure your kitchen space and work out where everything’s going to go before you start looking at specific products.

Do you want a box or an upright fridge/freezer? Both need quite a lot of space, and work best if positioned with a small amount of space around the edges.

Also think about the amount of storage you’ll need to fit all the ingredients for school dinners. How many students do you serve a day and how much food do you need to prepare each day? You need to know this to establish what size fridge or freezer you will need.

2. What are you going to put in them?

Depending on how much food you’re planning to store, you may opt for a few fridge-freezer combos rather than individual units. If you go for the combo, you’ll need to think about the food it will store:

• If you cook with mostly fresh food, you’ll need a large fridge-freezer ratio – we suggest 70/30, 60/40 split.
• For frozen foods, an equal split is probably best.

We suggest finding a model with adjustable shelves (and plenty of them) so you can fit lots of food in there at once, no matter its shape.

3. Is it worth going frost-free?

Are you going to be able to dedicate time, effort and staff to defrosting your freezers? If you’re like any other school kitchen, probably not.

Opt for the frost-free model that stops ice from building up and maximises your storage space. It may even help keep your energy bills down, so the initial extra cost is quickly paid for.

4. Do you need any special features?

Fridge-freezer tech is improving rapidly, and helps keep your food fresher for longer. Here are just a few that could help you preserve your food:

• Blue light technology – mimics the sun’s rays to keep food fresh
• Twin cooling – keeps humidity at optimum levels
• Fresh zones – areas of the fridge kept at certain temperatures to preserve fish and meat
• Fast chill – locks nutrients into food

Will your school need this? If you have ingredients delivered daily, probably not, but if you wait a week between deliveries this new tech could be a godsend!

5. What do you know about energy saving?

Fridges and freezers are on 24/7, so it’s really important to consider the energy rating – especially when you think of the running costs associated with it.

All are rated between A+ and A+++, and the higher the better (kind of like school grades!). While the energy saving models can be more expensive, they may save you money in the long run.

So there you have it: a crash course in finding the perfect fridge and freezer for your school kitchen. All you have to do now is go out and look – good luck!

Ask the experts at Utility Rentals about fridges and freezers for school kitchens, and they’ll be happy to help find the best one for you!