There was a time when you could invest in a piece of equipment and it wouldn’t need replacing for years. Nowadays, it feels like every time you unlock your smartphone or smartwatch or other ‘smart’ equipment, there’s an update for it. On top of that, you might have just parted with several months’ worth of wages to get the latest handset, only for a new one to roll around within the next six months. Technology is updating, reinventing, and redesigning at an alarming rate, and it can often seem like too much too quickly.
However, there are still a few classics that pass the test of time. For the hospitality and catering sector, these trusty pieces of kit are vital for profits. Here are a few of those heroes that have stood the test of time.
Toaster
The many internet users’ minds were blown in recent years when the rumour surfaced of the ‘truth’ of numbers on a toaster. Many people tweeted and retweeted how they were ‘today years old’ when they found out those numbers on a toaster’s dial relate to the number of minutes the toaster will toast your bread for, and not ‘the level of toastiness’ achieved.
This, like many mind-blowing Internet revelations, turned out to be false — the numbers reflect different things depending on the manufacturer. But other than flexibility with the dials and such, the design of the toaster has remained steadfast for many years.
The electric toaster was invented in 1893 by Scottish inventor Alan MacMasters. In the years since, a few tweaks have been made to sort out a heating problem and adding a spring into the machine, but by and large, the toaster has remained the same. So, much like the umbrella, any modern-day reinventions are often dismissed as wholly unnecessary. Take the Bluetooth smart toaster, which claims such wonders as being ‘controlled by a companion smartphone app to offer personalised settings’. Much akin to a traditional toaster then, only your hand extends out to the toaster instead of to your smartphone. Remarkable.
It’s a humble device, but one every kitchen, commercial or otherwise, ought to have a spot for.
Slush machine
Look, there are just some things in life you don’t mess with. The childhood nostalgia of sipping on a slushie is one of those things. If the corner shop idol that is the price of a Freddo must always fluctuate, then at the very least leave the perfection of a slushie on a hot summer’s day alone.
Slushie machines are often seen in the corner of the newsagents, churning away, and haven’t undergone any major changes over the years. The phrase ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ springs to mind when it comes to this machine — given the nature of what it is doing, there’s very little need to change anything. A slush drink is a mixture of sugar and water, with the precise sugar level a requirement in order to keep the mix from simply freezing solid. The movement of the slush machine prevents the mixture from freezing solid too, by keeping the sugar and water molecules bonded together.
Deep Fryer
It’s certainly not the healthiest choice in the world, but there’s a reason why deep-fried food is so popular with customer: it’s delicious!
although we have made the leap from frying in pans to using dedicated deep fryers, there hasn’t been a major update to this classic piece of equipment in a number of years now. After all, the process is pretty simple: prepare your food, and plonk it into the oil or fat to bubble away until crispy. Food fried like this is quick, easy, and tasty, which is why it has stood the test of time all the way back to the Ancient Egyptians.
Much like the fridge, a good deep fryer will serve a commercial kitchen faithfully for many years, if well-maintained and looked after. Your kitchen really can’t be without one for optimum efficiency.
Refrigerator
Refrigerators stopped the need for outdoor icehouses or iceboxes. Artificial refrigeration was pioneered by inventor William Cullen in 1748, and though the technology has been refined a fair bit since, there’s been no major overhaul to the equipment. In fact, the
We can’t image a commercial kitchen that doesn’t have access to a good-quality refrigeration unit — they might be a pricey one-off, but a good piece of refrigeration kit will tick over for many years reliably without needing replacement every time the world of technology lurches forward.