Buying Guide | Food Prep Refrigeration

Food Prep Refrigeration are a necessity for any foodservice operations preparing sandwiches, salad or any other food that requires cold prepped ingredients to add to the recipe. The combination of refrigerator and convenience working surface enhances a smooth kitchen flow. All the Refrigerated Prep Tables come equipped with a refrigerated base, a flat workspace and hotel pan storage on top.

However, there are various types, styles, and sizes of Sandwich Prep Refrigeration and Pizza Prep Refrigeration. Before the shopping, customers need to clarify their needs and select the one is able to meet their requirements. We will highlight a few key opinions and help to explain the features.

Type of Food Prep Refrigeration

Refrigerated Prep Tables are divided into two main categories: Salad & Sandwich Prep Table and Pizza Prep Table. Their appearance is very similar, in fact, they perform the same essential task: allow you move down the line and add cooled ingredients to the food. However, the difference still provides specific experiment along with their own feature.

Salad & Sandwich Prep Table

Sandwich Prep Refrigerator or Sandwich Cooler is an under counter reach in cooler with a refrigerated area for hotel pan to rest and cutting board on top. Comparing with Pizza Prep Table, Salad & Sandwich Prep Tables have a shallower cutting board with depth of 8’’ to 20’’. The pan area can be covered by fold-down lid, which generally stands 12’’ from the surface of the cooler. Most of the units have the compressor inside coolers, there are some models that feature side mounted refrigerator.

Pizza Prep Table

Pizza Prep Refrigerator is made for 1/3’’ hotel pan. The top storage section is raised and at far back of the unit top. This refrigerator area rests 4-8’’ above the working surface, which means an easier access and making it easier to drop ingredients on pizzas. The cutting board is deeper with a range of 16’’ to 20’’. As the result of raised area, pans are not suspended within the undercounted refrigerator. This gives the pizza prep able a larger storage space underneath. Side mounted refrigeration is performed to most of the pizza unit.

Size

Size not only determine the amount of storage space on both surface and underneath of cooler, but also how it fits into the kitchen. Therefore, customers need to pay attention to their floor size and amount of ingredients. Obviously, larger size is suitable for a kitchen that holds huge amount of various ingredients used for prepare food. However, to the business struggling with floor space, they have to trade-off storage space against a smaller footprint. Salad & Sandwich prep tables have the size range from 27’’ to 72’’, and pizza unit starts from 44’’ to 93’’.

Storage

Door or Drawer

Customers could choose tables with doors, draws or combination based on their preference and needs. Each type has its own advantage.

• Unit with doors is the same idea with the undercounted reach-in refrigerator. It is equipped with wire shelving which is suitable for any type of containers and packages.
• Unit with drawer is designed to hold extra food pan to replenish what used out on the surface. It saves time by accelerating replacement time. But this type comes with less refrigerated space than door type.
• Unit with combination seems a good choice if customers do not have obviously preference between storage space and easier access.

Standard Top or Mega Top

There are two types of top available on market: standard and mega. Styles of top do not change the overall width of units, but they do make a difference on storage space.

• Standard top has 2 row of hotel pans and a wider cutting border, which is adequate for any type of sandwich.
• Mega Top Refrigerator is a better option for operation offer a wide range of ingredients and topping. It provides 50% more space for pans by having 3 row of hotel pans. In order to hold same overall width, mega top units are a bit deeper and taller, and the cutting space is sacrificed a little as well.
• Cutting top is a special type, which is not popular than above two. It provides same storage space with standard top units but equipped with an extra large cutting board.

Pan Capacity

Salad & sandwich prep table generally hold a certain amount 1/6’’ size food pan, however, there are numbers of different configurations for each size. Storage capacity should be decided based on the number of ingredients needed. Unlike salad & sandwich unit, each pan size of pizza prep table only has one configuration. There are various size of pans as well, pizza unit generally take 1/3’’.

Refrigerator

Methods of refrigerating seems to be neglected when thing go to prep table. In fact, the difference is easier to be revealed during the using. We will explain three main methods below to give you a brief idea.

• Air cooled is the most common method used on salad & sandwich prep table. Because of low maintenance and labour cost, it is an excellent option for new business. However, air cooled unit has lower power than alternative.
• Cold wall is suitable for a greater variety of pans and configuration, since it has refrigerant line through table structure. It is a great solution for customers want to place various pans. However, this unit does not work well on keeping uniformity temperature.
• Liquid jacket is the newest technology that is able to keep uniformity temperature with lower consuming of energy. It typically used on pizza prep table, and cost will be an issue.

Common Food Prep Refrigeration

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