Resources for Commercial Food Preparation Equipment

While some restaurant menu items never change, newer additions to the menu require new commercial food equipment. For example, many restaurants have frozen yogurt on their dessert menu now. That means the owner needs a commercial frozen yogurt machine in the kitchen to prepare this item. To keep your customers coming back, you need to know what menu items they like and be able to prepare them quickly.

Commercial food equipment news can help you stay on top of the latest trends. You can also find out what new food preparation supplies are available to help your chefs with the food prep process. As you prepare to purchase new commercial food preparation equipment, to add new items to your menu or make preparation of food easier for your staff, evaluate the following:

1. Consider whether the new commercial food service equipment truly adds to the quality of the product you are selling.

2. Find out if the new food preparation equipment is efficient and actually shortens the food prep time.

3. Ask if the new commercial food equipment can pay for itself with increased sales.

Stay current by reading commercial food service equipment trade magazines

You can read many of these magazines online or you can order a hard copy. Regardless of which method of delivery you choose, these are an excellent source of up-to-the minute commercial food preparation news and trends.
Nation’s Restaurant News is an online magazine that highlights commercial food preparation news and trends. Reed Business Information provides information about commercial food preparation in its newsletter entitled Restaurants and Institutions.

Sign up for free online commercial food service equipment newsletters

These newsletters often highlight news and trends in food service equipment and preparation techniques. Many of these newsletters also provide recipes that you can easily adapt for your restaurant.
ThomasNet provides information about food preparation equipment on its website. Sign up for the newsletter provided by Global Equipment to keep up on new food prep equipment.

Read blogs and buyer's guides provided by companies that sell commercial food preparation equipment

You can often trace new trends by observing the comments posted on these blogs and other websites. These companies often feature their latest products, so you can get an idea of how the food prep equipment styles are changing.
ServU-Online, a provider of commercial yogurt machines among many other items, offers a blog to keep its customers posted on commercial food preparation news and trends. Big Tray has a number of buyer’s guides you can use to help you with the purchase of items like commercial food mixers, industrial food grinders and convection ovens. These guides can help you choose commercial food preparation equipment with the newest features.

• As you read commercial food service equipment reviews, remember who the author is. If the person writing the piece is also selling commercial food equipment, his opinion might be biased. If you read several articles that all favorably mention a piece of food prep equipment, you know you are looking at a piece you can seriously consider adding to your restaurant.