Speed: How PKL can save you time and money

“Time is money” – Benjamin Franklin

This is never more true than in the world of construction, where time on site drives up overhead costs, and delays can stall the generation of revenue. What can be even more frustrating is when this is a “back of house” or support function such as a kitchen and dining facility. 

Over the past 25 years, our PKL Transworld division has been involved in a large number of catering infrastructure projects around the world where previous experiences of delays have led clients to contact PKL for help. We’ve also worked with clients where concern over programme deadlines for rigger camps, refineries or construction worker camp kitchen and dining facilities has led to PKL being called in to get the job done.

Quite often, we are contacted after a client in a remote location has already tried to source their kitchen locally and has ended up with a significant cost and programme overrun. The savings hoped for by sourcing locally have not been realised and the whole process has become quite painful. We are focussed on providing cost and programme certainty for clients who want to focus on other core projects, knowing that the kitchen facilities will just sort themselves out. We can help clients spend their energy and money on more mission-critical areas.

There are several ways to reduce programme on site:

• Faster supply
• Concurrent activity
• Get it right first time
• Use a competent and experienced team

PKL is able to save time through having ex-rental stock available for immediate deployment; we have 900 units and about 10,000 items of catering equipment under management around the world. The design process is shortened by using tried and tested designs that can very easily be tweaked by our in-house design team.

While we prepare and ship the kitchen modules and units, we also advise clients on the services and foundations specifications so that a high level of concurrent activity can be achieved. Because they arrive with almost all mechanical and electrical work complete, PKL units require only a couple of weeks on site (in some cases just a few days) to complete and be ready for use. We can either supply a complete installation team or a project advisor to work with a local team to complete the installation. 

Thanks to our extensive experience in the world of international sporting events, such as the Olympic Games, we have a company culture of completing works to a demanding and immoveable deadline. Beyond that, we help with keeping the kitchen going by providing a spares pack, full operating and maintenance manuals, planned preventative maintenance and online and telephone technical support.

We do what we can to make the kitchen our problem, and not the client’s. If we can save our customers time, energy and money that they can then direct into their core business, then we feel like we have done a good job.
 

PKL Donates £6000 to the Children's Food Trust

Following the Olympic Games last summer, we went through our catering equipment hire stock and allocated a number of items to be sold off, which were surplus to our ongoing requirements. We’ve made this surplus equipment available at great prices through our Mid West Catering Equipment division, enabling caterers to buy quality, second hand equipment at a fraction of the RRP.

As you may already know, we pledged to make a donation to the Children’s Food Trust for every piece of kit sold, and I handed over our first cheque back in January, which was for a massive £8000.

Following on from this, I’m pleased to announce that I presented donation number two - a cheque for £6000 - to Rob Rees, Chairman of the Children's Food Trust last week.

Rob said: “We’re delighted PKL has supported us with another donation. The Trust’s work in encouraging more children, schools and parents around the country to have a positive experience with food is hugely important. This will help us reach more schools and more children in 2013.”

The Children's Food Trust is a national charity which aims to get children eating better, and its work includes developing healthy school menus and cooking skills with children. I’m very proud that PKL is able to support this charity, as they do a huge amount of work on improving children’s eating habits and, through this, encouraging children to reach their potential.

I look forward to PKL continuing to work with the Children's Food Trust to further support their excellent work.

PKL's Olympic Legacy Raises £8000 for Children's Food Trust

Our contract to supply temporary kitchens and catering equipment to London 2012 resulted in many ex-hire catering equipment items, some of which were used at the athletes' village and other Olympic venues, being made available over the past four months at huge discounts through Mid West Catering, a division of PKL which specialises in selling quality second-hand catering equipment. 

Our commitment to make a donation to the Children’s Food Trust for every used item sold has now resulted in a truly Olympic-sized windfall for the charity, which recently received its first donation from us in the form of a cheque of £8000.

The Children’s Food Trust is a national charity which exists to protect every child’s right to eat better and, so, to do better. Their work includes developing healthy school menus and cooking skills with children. PKL has worked with the Children’s Food Trust on a number of projects recently.

“We are very happy to support the Children’s Food Trust with this donation,” said Lee Vines, our sales and marketing director. “Their work, in encouraging more children, schools and parents around the country to have a positive experience with food is very important. We also hope that many schools benefited by being able to buy this ex-hire equipment at heavily discounted prices. School catering managers can now provide more for their students that they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.”

With the ex-hire equipment selling so well, Lee was able to present a cheque for a total of £8000 to the Children’s Food Trust at their offices in Sheffield. 

Chief Executive, Judy Hargadon, said, "This donation will help us reach even more children - whether through our research programme, our work to improve food in early years settings and in schools, or our work to help even more children learn to cook."

Winter Olympics Trade Visit to Sochi

PKL's Commercial Director Peter Schad has set off on a trade visit to Sochi in Russia to promote the company ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics. PKL has a wealth of Olympic experience which includes providing kitchens and catering equipment to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Athens, Sydney and Beijing Olympics as well as the Youth Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and many more similar events. 

The trip also has special significance for PKL, as we are based in Cheltenham, and Sochi is our twin town. Cheltenham Racecourse kindly donated some scarves, and Cheltenham Town FC generously provided a signed football shirt to be taken over (see photo, courtesy of Glos Media). The Mayor of Cheltenham also wrote a letter introducing PKL to the Mayor of Sochi.

The story has been featured in local newspaper The Gloucestershire Echo, and was also mentioned on BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

PKL at the Olympics - Beijing 2008 Athletes Village Kitchen and Dining

The Beijing Summer Olympics was the largest Olympics ever – and this was also true of the athletes dining facility in the Olympic Village. There were 16,000 athletes and officials from 204 countries, as well as 10,000 staff and guests – all to be fed 24 hours a day. 

Working through the master caterer ARAMARK, PKL were responsible for the design liaison, specification, supply, installation and 24 hour maintenance of all the foodservice equipment and coolroom facilities, in an area, which covered 20,000 sqm or three soccer pitches. 

To ensure a successful delivery, PKL established a project office in Beijing 12 months before the Games began. In addition to permanent PKL management and engineering staff, a team of Chinese project managers, translators and administrators were employed overcome any language, cultural and technical hurdles. All facilities were designed in full compliance to local fire, hygiene and construction standards. 

The key operational factor of this project was the ability of PKL to utilise prefabricated complex Portable Kitchen modules, and ship them worldwide quickly and cost effectively. All the equipment used was from the PKL hire fleet and at the end of the Games was re-hired to other projects.

For more information on our installation at the Athletes Village in Beijing, please click on the link below: http://www.pkl.co.uk/foodservices/portablekitchenhire.asp