Firstly WHAT and WHO is a Food Service Design Consultant?
They are a complex beast! With skills and decades of industry experience , skills in Hospitality , Interior Design, Building, Construction and Architectural drawings, narrowed down into the specific Niche of Food and Beverage Premise Design.
Commercial Kitchen design consultants work with Hospitality Architects, Hospitality Interior Design, Commercial builders and developers. Assisting them on larger more complex projects such as hotel design, often specifically looking at commercial kitchens. A good Commercial Kitchen Design consultant is a key partner with any Chef Consultant, The work may be large complex projects or they may be smaller and simpler simple kitchen, bar or food service facilities, into new or into an existing building.
A Hospitality design consultant should be highly experienced in many sectors of food service hospitality and catering industry, preferably being an experienced Qualified Chef and or with Hospitality Management experience.
They should have years of experience in food service equipment, supply, manufacture and design sector post Hospitality/Food Industry Career.
They will have a deep and sound experience and understanding of the building design, documentation and construction industries, and keep abreast of latest equipment technologies and trends along with Food safety legislation Building and Construction standards and Codes relevant to Kitchens, Bars and Food Service areas.
WHY? Because they are professional, independent* and specialists in the area of food and beverage design only, they don’t design houses, buildings or retail stores.
*Independent means they are working for the client to achieve best outcome for the client, they are paid a for design and consulting advice that is int he best interests of the clients operation. Typically a good consultant will be focussed on functional and operational design matters to ensure best possible outcome commercially.
A good consultant will add massive value through efficient, effective professional design that will allow a business to produce its best productivity, considerations such as labour, skills, energy, productivity, commercial value and are prime areas of focus during design.
Poor functional design = increased labour and food costs and reduced profitability.
Typically food service designers design back to front , very much the opposite of how an Interior Design or Architect will approach the project, they will normally be focussed on the ‘look and presentation’ initially. A good food service designer should be designing ‘operationally first’ ensuring that the machine (the Kitchen and bar) can actually produce what it needs to, then we look at the Aesthetics, its pointless having the best looking place if it can’t produce and great product and service because the design hinders its ability to do so.
A good foodservice design consultant will have spent many years working in the industry at deep level and importantly in a wide range of establishments and industry sectors, the commercial food industry is much bigger than just restaurants, cafes and hotels, there are may more sectors.
We can SAVE a client tens of thousands of dollars if you engage us early enough in the process, also during and at the end of the process with tender/quote appraisals and final defect quality insurance inspections.
WHEN? At first thought!! This cannot be stressed enough.
You need to be talking with a food service consultant designer at the start!
Once a building reaches design maturity let alone actual build itv can often be too late to make changes required to accomodate the correct design.
This is where we see time and time again buildings that are at a completed and approved design stage or even built where sufficient space has not been allocated for the project to be able to work functionally, correctly and profitably.
Not only are their operational and functional considerations such as correct storage, preparation and waste to be worked through in the beginning but a lot of construction services that need to be addressed and worked through at the very beginning.
We still see buildings built without consideration for mechanical air services , hydraulics, power such as electricity or gas or even storage for the gas ! No access for deliveries, waste storage or access to waste and generally no storage space.
All of these items can be addressed early in the design phase with the building architect and or developer, saving many thousands of dollars of extra costs during the build & fit out phase if they had been factored into the initial design at the beginning.
Sometimes engaging a food service consultant before signing a lease or purchasing a property is well worth the investment, they may highlight unforeseen costs and or issues with the suitability of the building and or area.
If you are new to being involved in a new building or project design , you may not know of how many different designs and specialists are involved, the bigger the project, the more complex, and the more specialists!
Our design philosophy approach is much like designing a heavy duty work vehicle.
There is absolutely no point focussing all your effort on the paint job, shiny wheels and fancy trim if you haven’t got the gear box, motor and brakes sorted …the vehicle maybe look great, but it wont do the job properly.
The above may sound a little melodramatic but unfortunately its not and we see so many business set up to fail through poor operational design and an over focus on aesthetic design.
Recently we were asked to look at a design for a small regional hospital, designed to 95% complete, ready to start construction almost. The only thing that wasn’t design was the food operations, and in a hospital there is a LOT more space required that say a hotel due to the nature of the industry and service styles. You have have already guessed…the spatial allowance allocated for the food and beverage operation we estimated to be around 30% of the actual space required! There had been no food service consultant on the project, and now it was nearly build, and they have some big issues to work through that could have been avoided if a food service consultant was engaged in the beginning.
It has been suggested by one source that there can be around 42 different design/drawing types in a major project! This may be on the high side, on some of the larger projects we have been involved with there certainly has been more than a dozen specialist and design specialists involved, all with their specific technical drawings and specifications as required, ‘Commercial Kitchen, Bar and Food Service Areas is one of these specialists’
Other Services: Depending upon the consultants business and experience other service may include, Menu and Product Design , Food Safety Training , Operating Programs and Training, Staff Training, Food Safety Technology Systems.
