Which types of foodservice equipment are you specifying, selling or purchasing more or less often?

"Hoods from manufacturers that offer consistent representation and quality products, have come to understand LEED culture, provide expert factory support including quick turn-arounds on shop drawings by knowledgeable staff."

"Products clients are requesting and I am specifying more of include:

Blast Chillers- Operators and chefs are becoming more concerned with food temperatures as regulations tighten, Health department fines increase and advance food production and sous vide continue to grow in popularity.

Vacuum packaging machines- Every chef seems to want to “vacuum seal” products today and there is a much broader interest in doing professional looking packaging for take-out and grab 'n go.

Pasta cookers- Italian and pasta concepts are hot, and chefs all seem to want these cookers, even in non-Italian concepts. In some cases, they are replacing fryers.

Pasta makers- Restaurants and even some noncommercial operations want bragging rights that come from making their own pasta. Using a blast freezer to freeze the pasta for retherm is popular with a number of top chefs. This allows for smaller machines and more efficient advanced production off hours.

Speed ovens- Everyone knows about them thanks to Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and Subway. Models offer a lot of menu versatility without the need for expensive hoods and fire protection. As chefs learn to use them and manufacturers develop more specialized, menu specific units I think they will become as standard in kitchens of the future as microwave ovens are today.

Panini grills- Every operator in every segment wants them. When operators start using the new high speed panini grills, it will open another wave of interest. To a large extent, panini grills eliminate the need for traditional toasters in many operations. One caveat: many areas are starting to require some type of exhaust hoods over these units, which could dampen use if this becomes a national standard.

Planchas- These high temperature griddles are really hot with chefs since they support many food trends. Once only available from high-end European cooking suite manufacturers they are now offered by multiple domestic makers. One factory offers them in both heavy duty and restaurant range configurations.

Countertop water filtering/ carbonating systems- Green-minded customers see bottled water representing unnecessary waste, but still want pure and sparkling water. These systems (leased or purchased) are becoming popular in noncommercial and fine dining applications. Endorsed by a number of top chefs, who have proven they can still sell a carafe of filtered water properly presented, so the issue of losing profits from bottled water sales is much less of an issue."

“Overall our sales volume is trending toward  the 'value' and  'mid range' price points for most major equipment. Quality is certainly important, regardless of the price. In addition, there is increased interest in 'energy efficiency.'”

"The overall trend we're seeing is operators trading down, to lower-priced models of the equipment they buy. A growth area is environmentally sensitive display equipment that operators in healthcare, B&I and restaurants are increasingly using to present local, sustainably produced and seasonal foods. Induction units are replacing chafers, for example. We're also selling more equipment with extended warranties, and some 60% of orders are now being placed online by operators."

"During the last 18 months, Disney has been engaged in its largest reorganization and expansion in its history, so I've been buying a lot more equipment. We've redone the central kitchens in southern California and have purchased production pieces for restaurants, hotels, resorts, cruise ships and theme parks around the world. We've added combi ovens for medium-duty programs, pressure steamers for high-volume production, both upright and undercounter refrigeration units and a lot of combination freezer-refrigerators that support frozen-to-fresh production programs."

"We're still buying boiler-based steamers, despite the high ongoing cost of replacing the boilers, because we can't get boilerless units with sufficient capacity and fast enough recovery times. We're happier with the dishwashers we've been able to purchase that use less water and require less energy to heat the water they do use. We're able to operate with a smaller footprint and we're seeing ROI on these big dish machines in less than three years. We're also looking to increase our composting, so we're now looking for a high speed composter and a dehydrater that uses less power and fits inside our production kitchens."