For a commercial kitchen or production site to work efficiently, the process must flow. This will mean planning for the movement of produce, materials, equipment and staff. When planning the layout and areas a key consideration should be drainage.

Drainage is a fixed service built into the facility, often other equipment such as work benches or machinery can be relocated and electrics can be installed after the fact. However, drainage layouts can be expensive if not impossible to remedy due to being cast into floor slabs and gradients in the floors directing water towards them. Therefore, it is advisable to fully consider how drainage is used and the product selections available at an early stage in the planning process.

Using modular systems enables designers to create layouts catering to the unique requirements of each project. Food production facilities rarely operate in exactly the same way due to the nature of varying processes and end products, therefore drainage systems will need to be adaptable to each facility. Modular systems have the benefit of using standard sizes from tried and tested systems with the flexibility of creating unique layouts. Often a channel drain or slot drain in fixed metre lengths and connecting sump can provide perfectly adequate solutions off the shelf with little or no lead time from order. Custom systems can be selected and fabricated should off the shelf solutions be unable to fully cater for the needs of the project.

The requirements of drainage systems will depend on the application, the drain may only need to cater for occasional and small amounts of surface water separating wet and dry areas, i.e. a slot drain running across the entrance to a walk in chiller. Alternatively, the system may need to cater for regular flows of surface water, say a wash down area, or allowing for an equipment failure event. Slot drains have low impact on areas, however in a large sudden release of liquid could hydraulically bridge a small reveal, a wider channel would allow for better capture of the liquid but would be over-engineering in some situations. Correct product selection is imperative to ensuring successful operation of the drains in all situation.

Other considerations include the grate openings, slip resistance and load capacity. If the drainage system is in a butchery or rendering plant the area may need to be regularly washed down, and the grate will need to allow for large solids to pass through the openings and collect in a strainer basket. If located in a production facility there might be trolleys or machinery moving produce around, if a large grate opening were selected here the wheels could become caught, equally the load capacity of the system needs to cater for machinery (e.g., forklifts). Restaurant kitchens are fast paced requiring drains to quickly remove spilled liquid, a high slip resistance will be required here as staff frequently move around in flat footwear (as opposed to gumboots), service staff may be wearing shoes with heels or this could be situated in an open market or hybrid retail environment so type of pedestrian traffic is also a consideration.

Allproof uses stainless steel to manufacture the MC range of modular commercial kitchen drainage. The use of stainless steel provides a material that is free from pores or cracks that could house bacteria and has a durable surface that will maintain its integrity and is easy to wash down. This off the shelf, locally manufactured drainage solution will meet the requirements of all food preparation applications and being made in NZ, lead times, site support and pricing stability are a given and will lead your specification to a perfectly completed project.