Caterers, B&B Owners and Others Who Cook Professionally at Home: Is Commercial Refrigeration Right for Your Home Kitchen?

If you're running a bed and breakfast, a catering company or any other type of food-based business out of your home kitchen, you may be wondering if you should upgrade to a commercial fridge. A commercial fridge will provide the extra room you have been craving, but commercial refrigeration also involves a lot more than just giving you extra space to chill perishables. There are several other things you need to consider before taking the leap into commercial refrigeration:

1. Space considerations

Unlike residential fridges, commercial fridges aren't designed to fit tidily in place with standard-size kitchen countertops. Even with small commercial fridges, their width and breadth is typically much larger than the standard residential fridge. As a result, you need to ensure your kitchen has enough space. You may need to knock out a pantry, repurpose a closet or reorient the flow of your kitchen so you can walk around a large fridge.

2. Electricity

You cannot plug a commercial refrigerator into a standard outlet. Like dryers and ovens, these appliances need a special outlet. As a result, you will need to consult with an electrician before arranging the delivery of a commercial refrigeration unit. However, the right professional can easily set up the right wiring for you.

3. Ice Dispensers

As a general rule of thumb, commercial refrigerators don't have small amenities like ice and water dispensers. If you have this feature on your existing fridge and love it, you will need to think of how you are going to deal with its absence on your commercial fridge. Do you also want to keep your residential fridge? Do you have room for multiple fridges? Do you want to add a separate water dispenser? Do you want to buy an ice maker? You will have to explore questions like these if you plan to switch from a residential fridge to a commercial refrigeration unit.

4. Noise

The motors on a commercial fridge can run loudly. If possible, talk with a refrigeration representative and see if you can spend some time listening to the motors of the units you are considering. That can help you judge whether the noises will bother you or not, in your home. If you are running a bed and breakfast, you may also want to make sure that the noises from the commercial fridge don't carry into your guests rooms.

If you have the space, are willing to have a bit of wiring done, and have addressed issues such as noise and ice, you may love the benefits offered by commercial refrigeration. It can seriously boost the amount of room you have to store perishables, making it easier to run your business. Call a refrigeration expert today for more details.

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