iKitchen: joined-up thinking for the kitchen

Rational’s concept helps meet the challenges of kitchen management

Managing a commercial kitchen is getting more complex by the day.  The Covid-19 pandemic has added to the pressures already created by challenges like lack of space, the skills shortage, mounting costs and digitalisation. There are also rising customer expectations and the demand not only for quality but also for special diets such as vegan and gluten-free.  Rational believes it has created the solution with the iKitchen – a system that not only helps managers to manage, but also takes away some of the headaches of operating a kitchen.

iKitchen is based on three Rational products: the iCombi Pro combi steamer, the iVario Pro multifunctional cooking system, and the ConnectedCooking platform.  Working together, the three create a sustainable, space-saving solution that increases productivity and flexibility.

“Our objective is to facilitate the work in kitchens, whether they are producing 50 or 500 or more meals per day,” says Graham Kille, technical sales director of Rational UK.  “iKitchen streamlines processes and saves space, money, energy and raw materials.”

For example, say a kitchen is equipped with a kettle, boiling pan, deep-fat fryer, pressure cooker, convection oven and a hob. Replacing all these appliances with an iCombi Pro and iVario will save up to 40% in space – and together the pair will cover 95% or more of all conventional cooking applications. With some processes, such as boiling pasta or cooking using sous-vide, they can even take over from each other and thus significantly increase the flexibility of the kitchen. The iCombi Pro and iVario Pro cooking systems have identical control panels, which guide the user through the menu. They both also have intelligent functions, which again make them very easy to operate, even for untrained staff, thus helping managers deal with the issue of a skills shortage.

Both appliances are very energy efficient. Functions like overnight cooking not only further reduce running costs but also save on production time and eliminate a lot of pressure from the kitchen.

The product that joins everything together in iKitchen is Rational’s cloud-based networking solution, ConnectedCooking. The platform can be used to manage and transfer cooking programs for the iCombi Pro and the iVario Pro centrally, and to access and save HACCP data from both cooking systems.  In fact, the iCombi Pro can even be controlled remotely. ConnectedCooking not only assists with managing the kitchen, it also ensures consistent quality in food production, by monitoring and recording cooking processes.

ConnectedCooking plays a key role in kitchen procedures, conveniently logging data for storage and analysis. This means that all production and HACCP data can be analysed from the office.

“iKitchen allows kitchens using Rational units to work even more successfully than before, and face their challenges in the most flexible way,” says Kille.

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