Moffat‘s versatile Chillogen banqueting trolley is saving one event caterer thousands of pounds every year – and the savings come in some surprising areas.
The Chillogen technology means the Moffat units can be used to rapid chill the plated meals, store them, regenerate them and keep them hot – all in the one unit, without needing to handle them. The Royal Armouries International (RAI), which is at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, regularly hosts events for hundreds of diners – and the Moffat trolleys are now at the heart of the banqueting operation.
Head chef Neil Moore McCarthy says the trolleys are making savings in the kitchen because all the food can be prepared days in advance – without compromising quality. "When we ran silver service event catering we’d need a team of chefs in the kitchen, working flat out till the early hours. With Chillogen trolleys we prepare the food well in advance, (calmly!) and one chef on the night can easily look after up to 200 diners."
Neil explains that all the hard work can be done while the kitchen is quiet, up to two days in advance. The meals are cooked then plated up and loaded into the trolleys – with each trolley holding up to 90 plates. The trolley then rapid-chills the meals down to 8C (within 90 minutes). Once chilled the unit switches to refrigerated storage until an hour or so before the event, when it switches to regen oven. It does all this automatically, with no staff input. When the food is ready it can be served direct by waiting staff – all the chef on duty has to do is monitor the operation and, if required, add garnishes and sauces.
The trolleys are making big savings front of house, too. Sharon Burrows, Front of House Manager for RAI explains: "When we ran silver service we regularly had dry cleaning claims from customers when waiters had accidently spilled food or sauce. We’re a very busy venue – over the Christmas period we’ll serve 25,000 meals or more. So dry cleaning costs claims could easily amount to £50 a week.
"Now the meals are served plated, straight from the trolleys, and we don’t have any spills. We don’t get any missing sauceboats either, as we used to, because we don’t need to put them on the table!
"What’s more, because there’s less work for staff to do, we only need one waiter for every 20 guests – that’s half what we required before.
"Even just front of house, the Moffat trolleys are saving us thousands every year."
The Chillogen technology also saves energy by using Moffat’s patented Sahara fan technology. The system actively blows recirculated air through heating or chilling elements, rather than the conventional method of drawing air through the heat exchanger or heating elements first.
Using a single fan for both heating and chilling results in a less complex design, lower energy consumption and safer, more predictable temperature control.
E & R Moffat is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of quality foodservice equipment, designing and manufacturing in-house. Based in Bonnybridge, Scotland, the company manufactures standard and bespoke servery, regeneration and storage equipment with a full nationwide after-sales engineering team. E & R Moffat is accredited to ISO 9001:2000 and many of the products have gas approvals and are EMC tested. For more information on E & R Moffat visit the website on www.ermoffat.co.uk