Throughout the United States, food businesses are constantly looking at how to maximize food production efficiency when floor space is limited. In the latest addition to the Schaumburg Specialties Learning Center, we highlight how virtually any commercial or commissary style kitchen can make the very most out of their space with the right choice of ancillary equipment. Check it out!

It’s true: if you’re a food production business such as a commercial bakery or pet food company, you don’t need hundreds of square meters of floor space to be truly productive. Even in the tightest of spaces, choices can be made by floor managers and production professionals that can truly transform levels of efficiency.

Before you consider your business location, take a close look at how you’re using your available space. By making some simple changes and adjustments, you can turn the smallest of spaces into a fast-paced production space. Keep reading to learn more!

Tip #1: Bake More Products More Efficiently

Time and time again, we meet food businesses with that classic problem of having lots of orders and demand for their products, with a lack of available space to pull it off.

To those businesses who think that their growth is totally capped by their floor space – think again. The baseline of your food business’ growth will largely depend on how many food products your team can actually produce in one given day. To make as much products as is possible in one day, there’s a few things you’ll need:

  • Food Preparation Tables: Before your goods are produced, your team will need a space on which to prepare ingredients and foodstuff prior to baking or cooking. By including a custom-sized food preparation table in your food production space, you can give your staff the space they need to prepare even more products. Food preparation tables can even be built to include an in-tray, as well as spaces to store residual products like animal byproducts.
  • Oven Racks: Forget baking your goods on one tray at a time. Whenever you use an oven rack, you can load several trays onto a multi-tiered rack, meaning you can bake dozens (or even hundreds) of products at once. Depending on the size of your oven (see below), you can opt for a single oven rack or a double oven rack.
  • Industrial Ovens: This is a bare essential if you plan on using oven racks. By opting for an industrial grade-oven, you can choose a product that will ensure a more even bake, as well as letting you bake more products in one go. If you go for a larger model, you can use double oven racks, thereby doubling your production efficiency.

Tip #2: Move Ingredients & Foodstuffs with Ease

Whilst preparing, baking and cooling your products can use up a lot of your time, it’s often the moving of products that can either slow things down or speed things up. When discussing this challenge with customers, we often return to that old mantra: “half of the work behind producing something is in moving its ingredients around”. Indeed, decades of experience has proven to us that this statement is correct.

If your floor space is limited, you may find it difficult to move ingredients and foodstuffs around without causing an obstruction. Fortunately, there are products that can help you meet this challenge in the tightest of spaces:

  • Nesting Racks: A key benefit of nesting racks in improving storage is that they can be ‘nested’ when they aren’t in service. They can be easily wheeled into a corner, giving you more available space to do other, more productive things. When ‘nested’ together, these handy products require 40% less floor space than conventional racks!
  • Dough Troughs: If you’re producing baked goods, it’s highly likely you’ll be using dough. Rather than allocating a section of your floor space for storing that dough, you can use a dough trough to store it and move it around as and when it’s needed. Not using your dough in one given day? Don’t sweat it – just wheel it into a free corner!

Tip #3: Optimize Your Available Space

When we talk about available space, we aren’t just talking about your floor. The fact is that the most productive food businesses are masters of space optimization and regularly assess how they’re using their available space from floor to ceiling, including wall space.

If you aren’t using your space in this way, now is the time to make some changes. Fortunately, there’s a variety of products to help make this objective a reality:

  • Dunnage Racks: An aluminum dunnage rack is a rack which enables you to store items like flour, sugar and canned foods off the production floor in a way that occupies very little space. Sturdy, durable and health code compliant, these racks allow you to store foodstuffs 6 inches above the ground and can be moved and stored elsewhere when not in-use.
  • Wall Storage Shelving: Look at the wall space in your food production environment. If those walls are bare, it’s highly likely that you aren’t using your space to its full capacity. By going for custom-built wall shelving, you can find a brand new space in which to store pans, ingredients and other pieces of equipment. It couldn’t be any easier!

Tip #4: Choose Custom Built Equipment

Nobody understands your available floor space as well as you do. By working with an experienced metal fabricator like Schaumburg Specialties, you can create your own line of custom-built products that have been specifically designed and engineered to fit into your space: no ifs, no buts.

As one of America’s leading metal fabricators, we’re passionate about solving our customer’s space challenges with products that are custom-built and designed according to your specification. Forget trying to find a standard product to fit your space – instead, invest in a product that’s built for your space and your space alone!

Solve Your Space Challenges with Schaumburg Specialties

Don’t let spatial limitations prevent your business from realizing its true potential. To find ancillary equipment that makes the very most out of your available space, browse our products or contact us to discuss your unique requirements.