St George's Day Dishwashing Dragon

Jumping on the St George’s Day bandwagon,

Here’s our special flight dishwasher dragon!

For an Olympic-sized feast

This warewashing beast 

Is so good you’ll just have to have one!

If you want to hire your very own flight dishwasher dragon (or just a standard flight dishwasher...) click here. Alternatively, view our full range of warewashing equipment for hire.

PKL Training Day

We’ve had fun trying something new today! We set up one of our temporary kitchens outside the office and invited a couple of chefs from one of our equipment suppliers to come and run a training session for some of our sales guys this morning.

Dan, Ed, Bill and Ciaran were given a hands-on lesson on how to use a whole range of commercial catering equipment, including a combi oven and salamander grill, and experienced one of our temporary kitchens from a chef’s point of view.

The chefs showed them all the features of the different equipment and discussed the best ways to get the most out of it and use it for a range of cooking styles. They also demonstrated how the kitchen layout, designed by our expert kitchen design team, had been optimised to make the most of the space and create a practical, efficient workspace.





Since we were also hosting a client meeting in the office this morning, the boys were then tasked with making hot breakfast wraps for all our visitors, and were set to work putting their new equipment knowledge into practice. Following his stint in the kitchen, Ciaran is a definite combi oven convert!





This morning's experience should help the guys to have an even better, more practical understanding of our equipment, and to be even more knowledgeable when helping advise clients on the most suitable catering equipment for their projects.

The kitchen was then used by the chefs at lunchtime to cook beef curry with rice and naan, as well as a salmon and asparagus dish, followed  a very tasty jam sponge pudding and custard!

You might have spotted from the photos that the kitchen unit itself was one of our energy efficient eKitchens. These have been designed with a number of energy saving features including high-spec LED lighting, additional insulation in the roof and floor, a double-glazed serving hatch, thermostatically controlled space heater, plus energy efficient taps and electric water heater. Our eKitchens have an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) rating of B42 compared to D97 for a standard unit, and can save users over £350 per year in energy consumption, so they're a great option particularly for longer term hires.

Visit our website for more information on our full range of temporary kitchens and catering equipment for hire.

Introducing the "Moon Cube"

We are hugely proud to announce that we have recently won the contract to install the first catering outlet on the Moon, in response to an anticipated increase in space travel in the next decade. Provisionally called the “Moon Cube”, it will be used to provide a range of drinks and light snacks to both astronauts and space tourists, as well as providing a stop-off point to break up longer journeys. While it is still in the very early design stages, it is anticipated that it will be ready to install within the next seven years, and there are also longer term plans in place to create a more comprehensive service station type facility if it is a success.

The Moon Cube is being designed with custom equipment to enable it to prepare and serve specialist space food. Due to the unique environment of space, food must be safe to store for relatively long periods of time, as well as being nutritionally balanced and easy to consume in low gravity environments, so this has an impact on the catering equipment required. Later this year, we will begin working alongside a number of suppliers to create new equipment designs suitable for the project, following scheduled discussions with a number of experts to identify required features and potential challenges.

Initial concept drawing for the PKL Moon Cube

The Moon Cube will feature a long-range beacon to alert passing space traffic to its presence, and transmit information on food and drink availability. An integrated computer system will also be used to communicate stock level information to the client on Earth, enabling efficient stock planning. In addition to these features, the project will also require us to implement systems for regulating the unit’s temperature, as well as air filtration and waste removal systems similar to those used in existing space vehicles.

Our highly skilled design team will be working to overcome a number of unique, site-specific challenges such as low gravity and pasteurised terrain, while it is anticipated that solar panels and generators will be used to overcome a lack of services on site. Our expert transport team are experienced in delivering to challenging locations, but this will be their greatest challenge yet. Throughout the design process, we will also be liaising with a number of agencies to discuss transport options, and as with all our projects, detailed delivery and lift plans will be created in advance. 

This project is a fantastic opportunity for PKL, and follows 25 years of success in supplying catering infrastructure to prestigious projects around the world. We have started the recruitment process for a number of specialist staff to take a lead on the project, including aerospace engineers and physicists, while our existing staff will be able to provide a wealth of experience and knowledge of catering design and installation. Although the deployment is several years away, this project represents the chance to build on our strong history of catering innovation and is the start of a new era for PKL.

For more information on our Earth-based Food Cubes, visit our website.

Constructing a Large Scale Modular Kitchen

Here’s a sneak preview of a large scale, open plan, temporary kitchen facility which is going out on hire this week. This particular facility comprises 35 units and was constructed here at PKL HQ before being disassembled into individual units, covered ready for transport and loaded onto trucks, ready to be installed on the client’s site. The facility is currently being reassembled at the client’s location, ready for final commissioning and handover.

A facility of this size really illustrates the benefits of off-site construction. The main build of the facility took place here at PKL HQ, including all the mechanical and electrical fit-outs as well as the installation of extraction canopies and catering equipment. Due to the size of the facility, it’s taken several weeks to build, but because all this work has been undertaken at PKL, there has been no disruption to the client. The rebuilding of the facility at the client’s site is now quite straightforward, and should only take a few days craning the units into position, ready for the internal reassembly. 

With a footprint of over 500m² this is a substantial facility, and will be on hire for 6 months during a major kitchen refurbishment. Three plant rooms are located on the roof, above the Central Island Canopies. These rooms house the extraction fans and the boiler for the tempered air, and also ensure that there are no roof leaks where the extraction penetrates the ceiling.

This type of large scale facility is typically specified for use during major refurbishment works at busy sites such as prisons, hospitals and universities, which have large catering operations which need to be maintained.

PKL Does Red Nose Day!

As well as being race week here in Cheltenham, today is also Red Nose Day, so we've had a day of fundraising for Comic Relief! Staff donated money to dress down (many of them in red or racing-themed outfits), and we brought in lots of tasty food to sell too!

In a nod to the horse racing happening just two miles down the road this week, we also did a special Gold Cup sweepstake, with half of the money raised going to Comic Relief and the rest into the prize fund. In fact, so many people wanted to take part that we ended up running two sweepstakes!

We're really pleased to have raised a total of £92!

Cheltenham Festival 2015 - Day 4

After a brilliant day on Wednesday, CowCow rather let himself down yesterday, only achieving a single fourth place out of all his predictions! Today is the final day of race week though, so we've given him a pep talk and he's looking lively.

Despite it being very overcast here in Cheltenham today, CowCow was keen to dress up and has put on his new sunglasses. If any of his predictions are wrong today, you'll know it's because he simply can't see what he's doing! But at least he looks cool, eh?

So, without further ado, here are today's predictions.

CowCow's Cheltenham Festival Predictions - 13th March 2015

Race 1 (1:30pm) - Petite Parisienne

Race 2 (2:05pm) - Waxies Dargle

Race 3 (2:40pm) - Out Sam

Race 4 (3:20pm) - Holywell

Race 5 (4:00pm) - No Loose Change

Race 6 (4:40pm) - Macnicholson

Race 7 (5:15pm) - Turban

Cheltenham Festival 2015 - Day 3

Well, CowCow was on fire yesterday! Not literally, luckily, but we wouldn't put it past him... Two of yesterday's mystical predictions won their races, and a further three came third in their races. A very impressive result for a psychic cow thrown at a paper spinner, we're sure you'll agree!

Today, CowCow is celebrating his success by dressing up in his "very clever cow" glasses, to make sure people take him seriously. We're not sure it's working. We now also have a colleague somewhere in the office who is unable to see properly...

Anyway, the spinner has been spun, the cow has been launched, and we have a new set of predictions for you, ready for today's racing.

Here are CowCow's chosen horses for today.

CowCow's Cheltenham Festival Predictions - 12th March 2015

Race 1 (1:30pm) - Splash of Ginge

Race 2 (2:05pm) - Henryville

Race 3 (2:40pm) - Taquin Du Seuil

Race 4 (3:20pm) - Lieutenant Colonel

Race 5 (4:00pm) - Edgardo Sol

Race 6 (4:40pm) - Gold Bullet
Race 7 (5:15pm) - Hurricane Ridge