Commercial Fridge Buying Guide
The first thing that comes to your mind when you are preparing for a restaurant, pop, or a cafeteria is the best brand and type of refrigerators and freezers that you will purchase.
The commercial fridge will be the most heavily used piece of equipment in your professional kitchen. So, it is important to buy a fridge that fits your business's needs. Hence, we will guide you in this post to make a good purchase for the best commercial fridge.
How to Choose the Best Commercial Fridges
As for commercial requirements, you need a powerful and reliable fridge that can deal with hot conditions and keep going when the doors are constantly being opened.
Therefore, the following list will help you understand the differences between the various types of commercial fridges.
Display Fridges
Display fridges are perfect for retail stores for merchandising chilled stock. It can be used in bars, takeaways, cafes, and canteens while also providing easy access for customers.
Display fridges are designed to merchandise food, including but not limited to fish, meats, pastries, and more. So, A stylish appearance that fits your café, restaurant, or bar aesthetic is a must for your commercial display fridge, as it is one of the first things that the customer sees.
For marine and red meat fridges, these commercial fridges have very specific safety and power requirements to meet international standards and adhere to food safety guidelines.
Ice cream lovers prefer to see the options of ice-cream to try before making their choice. So, a commercial display fridge must be attractive to your customers.
Moreover, when it comes to a commercial beer and wine fridge, this display fridge is the most common type that provides easy access to chilled bottled with its sliding doors and attractive lighting.
Walk-In Commercial Fridge
A Walk-in commercial fridge is known as a cold room fridge. It is considered one of the most effective types of commercial fridges that holds vast quantities of chilled or frozen ingredients if you have space.
The cold room is much used in the professional kitchens, which are in need to securely hold many racks worth of stock. Almost the walk-in commercial fridge is located outside, which leaves the rest of the kitchen free for other equipment and machines.
Most people will think that the walk-in fridge needs a huge kitchen. Otherwise, it is designed for small kitchens as you can install it outside with a weatherproof roof.
This type of commercial fridge is normally located between kitchen prep areas and server stations in which a walk in allows the kitchen staff to access as much food as to prepare the cold items.
Walk-in commercial fridges can better distribute the stock due to the food is located on racking, which makes it easier to find and organize compared with other commercial fridges.
Upright Commercial Fridges
If you’re looking for a huge internal capacity, an upright commercial fridge might be the best for your professional kitchen. It offers practical storage solutions to store bulky ingredients or food containers.
Considering cabinet format, an upright fridge is manufactured with single, double, or triple drawer models to support countertop cooking equipment, keeping chilled stock within easy reach during service.
The Upright commercial fridge is designed to hold a heavy and durable duty construction to withstand the demand of commercial usage. So, professional chefs can frequently open and close the doors without affecting the refrigerator.
If your areas with an ambient temperature lower than 25°C, an upright fridge is intended to hold a bed of flaked ice within every drawer
Explore: Upright commercial freezer
Under counter Commercial Fridges
For businesses who are trying to make maximum use of all available space, the under counter fridge is the perfect choice for you. You can easily locate the under counter fridge below the counters as its height measure less than 900mm.
Designed to be highly efficient, under counter commercial fridges can be fitted with stainless steel work surfaces, which is perfect to use in some applications with drawers or doors, saving energy at the professional kitchen.
Under counter commercial fridge comes with solid and durable doors, drawers, a combination of both that lose less temperature. It is available to suit any space of your kitchen whether home or business, from one door to four doors.
Trays can be transferred directly from the fridge to the oven, thanks to the GN compatibility of the under counter commercial fridge. It is ideal for sandwich shops, pizzerias, or hotel rooms.
Food Prep Commercial Fridge
If you’re looking for an easy preparation food area with a multi-functions’ fridge, Prep Food Commercial Fridges promises to exceed your expectations. With the food Prep fridge, you can reach in food from the top while keeping it under-bench.
It totally looks like the under counter commercial fridge, which combines the handy worktop with under counter storage, however, food is immediately accessible in food prep fridge.As it is ideal for places to serve salads, pizzas, sandwiches, quick-service restaurants in general.
The Food Prep fridge or Prep counter commercial fridge maintains food temperatures below the critical 5°C. There are two types of food prep commercial fridges:
- Air-Over: there is air blown over the top of the well-chilled from underneath.
- Chilled Wells: chilled wells are from the bottom without chill from the top, allowing the food to remain in the wells for a limited time.
Food Prep commercial fridge is designed with cool marble tops for efficient use of your business kitchen space.
Merchandiser Refrigerators
If you want to increase your sales and catch customer attention, the Merchandiser refrigerator is considered one of the best commercial fridges for you. This fridge is designed with low height and smaller footprint help to increase visibility.
Merchandiser fridge comes in a dizzying range of sizes and shapes from countertop models to large 3 section floor units. Moreover, some fridges have sliding doors and revolving shelves to show off the products.
Merchandiser fridges must attract the customers’ attention to buy your products by the eye-catching interior lighting and exterior color choices. It is popular in coffee shops, open buffet restaurants, and dual service merchandisers.
Feature to Consider in Commercial Fridges
Many newer models of commercial fridges have some features, you have to make sure about them to make a good purchasing.
Door Type
The door of each commercial fridge is an important phase to consider before making a purchase. You have to consider the wide of the aisles and the location of the other kitchen equipment in which single door or multiple doors.
Also, you have to keep in mind the other few features like the Self-closing doors that save energy especially when your hands full, Pedal opening door, or Stable door in which you only open the door you need.
Castors Function
Now, you’re free from lugging heavy equipment or reaching behind units, simply rolling out the refrigeration.
Some models of fridges come with castors to increase the mobility of equipment that makes the cleaning around easier. You just need to roll out the commercial fridge for leaving adequate space to clean and sanitize.
Digital Fridge Thermostats
When it comes to the digital thermostats of the fridge, you have to make sure about the quality of the new models. As digital thermostats provide more accurate readouts that make it easier to monitor temperatures.
Removable Gaskets
The gaskets seal airtight around the commercial fridge and keep cold air locked inside. Most commercial fridge brands offer Removablegaskets, ensuring that you get a strong secure seal throughout the lifetime of the equipment.