It’s been a busy time for hotel hires recently, so I thought it would be useful to write a blog post with some info about our temporary kitchen hire for hotels.
What and Why?
We hire out temporary kitchen facilities and commercial catering equipment for use during hotel kitchen refurbishments, kitchen emergencies, events and busy periods. Our units are available in a range of sizes and include production and preparation kitchens, walk-in coldrooms, dishwashing units, dry storage units, and dining facilities. You can select the exact items of catering equipment you need from our fleet of 9,000 items, and they come ready-installed in the kitchen units. Alternatively, we can hire individual items of catering equipment for use in your hotel’s own kitchen or in marquees during events.
Quality
Our kitchen units are purpose-built high quality commercial facilities, able to cope with heavy use at hotels. They fully comply with all current health and safety regulations and offer a number of features including a ventilation canopy, auto gas shut off, automatic fire suppression system, easy clean extraction system, infestation-proof construction, 500 lux lighting level, food-safe wipe-clean walls and plastisol steel wall lining, non-slip safety flooring, and insulated fire regulated wall panels, ceilings and floors. We supply top brand commercial catering equipment which is thoroughly cleaned and tested before going out on hire.
Delivery
Our kitchens arrive on the back of a lorry and are craned into position on your site. We’ve fitted our kitchens into all sorts of tricky locations at different hotels – our delivery team are experts! Delivery can be at any time to suit you, so we can work to avoid any particularly busy times or days of the week. Our installation team are quick and professional, so disruption on site is kept to a minimum while we’re linking units together and connecting them up to services.
Disruption to Guests
As well as delivering at a time to ensure minimum disruption to your hotel guests, we can also provide additional sound insulation and odour control units on any of our kitchens that will be located close to guest accommodation. This will minimise any kitchen noise or cooking smells released from the extraction systems.
Support
We know that hotel kitchens are often used all day every day. While on hire, all our kitchens and catering equipment are covered by our 24-hour technical support service. If you have any problems such as equipment breakdowns, at any time or on any day, all you need to do is call our technical support number and we’ll arrange for an engineer to come and help you asap. In emergencies, the engineer will be dispatched immediately, otherwise our standard response is within 24 hours (usually on the same day).
More Information
If you’d like more information or a quote for hiring temporary kitchen facilities for your hotel, please get in touch with myself or one of my colleagues and we’ll be happy to help.
Having been responsible for PKL’s projects in a number of universities and colleges over the years, I’ve put together this brief overview to answer some of the most frequently asked questions from clients in this sector.
I need a temporary kitchen for an emergency / refurbishment / event – can you help?
Yes! Whatever type of project you have, if you need a temporary kitchen or catering equipment at your university or college, we can help. From large, comprehensive kitchens and dining rooms, to the hire of single coldroom units or items of catering equipment, we can supply a solution to match your requirements. Our in-house designers can design the perfect solution based on your specific requirements, and I can also offer advice on the best options if you’re not sure what you need.
We have listed buildings or access challenges on site – can you deliver to a site like this?
Of course! I’ve worked on a number of university projects which have involved contending with all sorts of factors. Our transport and planning teams are experts in planning deliveries to difficult sites, and produce detailed installation plans, risk assessments and method statements for every unit we install, taking all site factors into account.
Previous university projects I’ve worked on have involved manoeuvring kitchen units by hand or forklift through archways, craning units over walls, protecting listed trees and shrubs on site, and moving over or around listed buildings - our team can find a solution to pretty much any site challenge! Where access is required over lawns, listed cobbles or paving, we provide trackway to ensure that the surface remains protected underneath.
We specialise in non-invasive, non-attached weatherproof links to listed buildings, which when removed leave the building unmarked and in the same condition as before the hire started. We also offer a range of exterior solutions, such as painted finishes, vinyl wraps or screens, if the look of a temporary facility is an issue.
Will hiring a temporary kitchen involve lots of noise and disruption on site?
No, not really. I appreciate that you’ll want to keep noise and disruption to a minimum, and we work hard to ensure delivery and installation is as quick and painless as possible, by preparing thoroughly and creating detailed plans in advance so there are no delays or surprises once on site.
The kitchens themselves are not too noisy to run, however if noise is a particular concern (perhaps if the kitchen is near student or staff accommodation) we can also provide extra insulation to our plant and coldrooms to reduce the noise emitted from the temporary kitchen and ancillary facilities. Likewise, if you are concerned about extraction emissions from the kitchen, we can also supply our facilities with Odour Control Units which can minimise cooking smells released from the extraction systems.
What if something goes wrong with the kitchen or equipment once it’s on site?
We’ll fix or replace it! I know that our university and college kitchens are often used all day every day, so our 24 hour technical support line is always open. All our kitchens and equipment are tested thoroughly before delivery, but if something does go wrong we’ll sort it out as quickly as we can. For major problems or emergencies, we can dispatch an engineer immediately, otherwise our standard call-out time is within 24 hours.
Is it a difficult process to procure your facilities?
No! PKL is a Pro 5 registered organisation which is a consortium made up of ESPO, YPO, CBC and NEPO. This means that we have undergone a pre-tender process to supply temporary kitchens to the public sector. Universities can place orders directly with Pro 5, safe in the knowledge that PKL has been assessed for best value. PKL is also a Crown Commercial Service listed supplier.
I hope this post has helped to answer some of the questions you may have about hiring temporary kitchens, dining facilities and catering equipment for your university or college. If you've got an upcoming project that PKL might be able to help you with, please get in touch for a chat and a no-obligation quote. You can also find more information on the PKL website.
A few staff members have taken part in PKL Christmas Jumper Day today, with Event Hire Executive Dan taking things to a whole new level with his elf outfit. A terrifiying sight, we're sure you'll agree!
We close today for the Christmas break, and reopen on Thursday 2nd January.
If you have an emergency over the Christmas period and require a temporary kitchen or items of catering equipment, our emergency response line is open 24 hours a day, and you can reach us on 0845 840 42 42.
For any non-emergency enquiries, please drop us an email and we'll get back to you when we reopen in the new year.
Wishing you a very happy Christmas and a successful New Year from all at PKL.
As we come to the end of PKL Contingency Week, you will have seen just how many businesses and institutions can benefit from kitchen emergency planning. Now is the ideal time to take advantage of our free contingency plan service, to make sure you have a kitchen contingency plan in place before the festive rush starts over the next couple of months.
If you have any upcoming refurbishment works and require temporary kitchen/dining facilities, don’t forget you can contact us about that too. Likewise, if you have any events planned over the next few months which require the hire of kitchen facilities or catering equipment, give my colleagues in our Events division a call and they'll be happy to help.
I’ll leave you with a couple more kitchen contingency case studies from the PKL archives…
Case Study: Care Home Kitchen Loss
When
a care centre was faced with immediate kitchen closure, they called PKL
to request a temporary facility to use until their kitchen was operable
again. As a residential care home, the provision of meals was vital in
order for the centre to look after its residents, so a replacement
kitchen was needed on site straight away. PKL provided a temporary
kitchen to enable the care centre to continue to provide food to its
residents, without disrupting the running of the home.
Case Study: Golf Club Fire
PKL provided a temporary kitchen and dining facility to a golf club when a fire destroyed the existing building. With their dining facility normally serving 200 golfers a day, the golf club was keen to continue offering food and drink to their customers. Within just a few days of order, PKL had a temporary kitchen on site, with a dining room for 40 people per sitting, enabling the golf club to maintain its catering service for the 12 months while the clubhouse was rebuilt. Read more of this case study here.
That’s it for PKL Contingency Week – I hope you’ve enjoyed our blog posts! Click here and fill out the short form to receive a free bespoke kitchen contingency plan from us, so you’re prepared in case of a kitchen emergency. There is no obligation and no catch - it’s just one of the many services we offer, so please do feel free to take advantage of it!
No matter how hard you try, there will always be some emergencies that you can’t fully prepare for. In these circumstances, often the best way to be prepared is to have details of the suppliers you might need, and make sure you are aware of the kind of help they are able to provide.
For example, it can be useful to familiarise yourself with PKL and know that we are able to provide a variety of different catering facilities of different sizes, including prep kitchens, production kitchens, warewashing facilities, dry storage, cold rooms and dining facilities. In the following PKL case studies, we were able to help the clients during their emergencies because they knew to contact us and that we would be able to help.
Case Study: Terrorist Attack
When the 7/7 bombings took place in London in 2005, huge numbers of emergency service personnel were drafted in to help control the situation and manage the aftermath. Due to the large number of officers working day and night following the attack, the police hired a temporary kitchen facility from us to cater for the increased number of staff who were drafted in, working around the clock to deal with the crisis.
Case Study: Disease Outbreak
When the mass bird flu outbreak hit the UK, the provision and distribution of vaccines was vital to controlling the spread of the virus. Due to the large quantities of vaccine being produced, stored and distributed, there was a demand for more cold storage. PKL supplied coldrooms to PCTs, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies to enable them to safely store the additional vaccines.
Case Study: Severe Flooding
During the major UK flooding in 2007, PKL received a phone call at 2.00am one night telling us that the army was being flown in by helicopter to help protect Gloucestershire’s main power substation from the flooding, as the whole county was at risk of evacuation if the substation was compromised. They requested an emergency kitchen facility to cater for the huge number of troops and fire service personnel working there, and we had a portable kitchen on site within just a few hours of receiving the call. When our drivers arrived to deliver the facility, the army also asked if they could utilise our truck to help with the efforts, as it had a Hiab crane. We were of course happy to offer our assistance – just another average day at PKL!
In this set of case studies, the clients did not require temporary replacements for existing kitchens, but developed a need for these facilities due to the emergency situations they found themselves dealing with. If you already have a kitchen and would like to be prepared for a situation where you lose the ability to use it, you can fill out a short online form to request one of our free, bespoke kitchen contingency plans. This way, you’ll be able to contact us in an emergency and we’ll already know exactly what facilities to supply to get you back up and running again as quickly as possible.
We can also provide temporary kitchen facilities to keep catering operations running during planned kitchen closures such as refurbishments – just get in touch and we’ll be able to discuss the best options to suit your requirements and provide you with a quote.
When you run a large scale operation, a sudden loss of catering facilities can cause a huge amount of disruption. It could be that a large factory loses use of its canteen and is no longer able to provide food for staff, or that a theme park is left without its main food court area, leaving it struggling to feed visitors and losing catering revenue.
These kinds of scenario can cause a real headache, so being prepared for a kitchen emergency is invaluable. A kitchen contingency plan can be used to provide peace of mind, and can ensure that should the worst happen, we can get temporary facilities out to you within a very short timeframe so as to minimise the impact of the emergency.
Case Study: Industrial Manufacturer Fire
When
a fire took place at a large industrial company in the Midlands, they
needed a temporary catering facility to continue to feed staff based on
site. PKL provided a huge 39-unit temporary kitchen and dining facility
to maintain the company’s extensive on-site catering capability,
ensuring minimum disruption to their day to day operations.
Case Study: Service Station Fire
When a motorway service station was completely destroyed by fire, PKL provided an entire replacement facility, including kitchen and dining facilities, toilets and a shop. This temporary complex was operational and in use within just 3 weeks of the initial phone call, ensuring that loss of business was kept to a minimum. The temporary facility stayed on site for a year until the service station had been rebuilt. To read more on this case study, click here.
We understand how difficult it can be when faced with a kitchen closure, whether due to an emergency or planned works. As well as providing you with a free, bespoke contingency plan, we can also hire temporary kitchen and dining facilities for use during planned kitchen closures such as refurbishments – just get in touch for a chat about your requirements.
Public sector institutions such as schools, hospitals and prisons are often heavily reliant on their catering facilities, with many people depending on them. It can therefore be disastrous when a loss of catering capability occurs. By having a kitchen contingency plan in place, you can ensure that you have a temporary replacement facility on site within a matter of hours, in the case of an emergency occurring.
Many public sector sites have already got personalised kitchen contingency plans in place with us, but if you haven’t got one yet don’t worry! We can provide you with a bespoke kitchen contingency plan completely free of charge – just fill out this quick online form to tell us about your current catering operation, and we’ll send you a personalised contingency plan based on this information.
Case Study: School Fire
When a large fire destroyed a school, the entire school was reopened in temporary buildings while the damaged buildings were rebuilt. PKL provided the school kitchen facility as part of this temporary structure, enabling the continuation of school meal provision to pupils and staff.
Case Study: Prison Kitchen Loss
When a large prison experienced a problem with the gas supply to its kitchen, PKL supplied an all-electric temporary kitchen facility to maintain catering provision in the meantime. For prisons, kitchen contingency planning is especially important, as inmates often cannot leave site to go elsewhere for food, so are entirely reliant on the prison kitchen to receive their meals.
Case Study: School Arson
Several years ago, PKL supplied an emergency kitchen to a school that had suffered an arson attack during the summer holidays, completely destroying existing facilities on site. The temporary kitchen complex we provided was a large facility which was successfully installed ready for the start of term. It stayed on site for 18 months while the school kitchen was rebuilt, and offered all the capabilities of the original school kitchen. To read more on this case study, click here.
Our temporary facilities are also ideal for use during planned kitchen closures, to keep your catering operation running smoothly during refurbishments or other works. If you have any upcoming refurbishments or other kitchen closures planned, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, and I can advise you on suitable temporary facilities to provide cover for this period.
For pubs, restaurants, hotels and other business operating in the hospitality industry, the kitchen is at the very heart of the business. The ability to serve food is a basic requirement, and the whole business would be put at risk if the kitchen were to become unusable.
In such a situation, maintaining foodservice provision is essential to fulfil existing bookings and maintain revenue streams, so it is important to have kitchen contingency plans in place. To receive a free, bespoke kitchen contingency plan, just fill out the quick form on our website here.
Case Study: Hotel Fire
When a hotel in Devon suffered a kitchen fire in the last quarter of the year, it was imperative that service continued so as not to lose business. With many Christmas parties and other festive events coming up, the hotel needed to maintain its catering capability urgently. PKL supplied a portable kitchen and coldroom, enabling party season to go ahead at the hotel as planned, avoiding a major loss in revenue.
Case Study: Pub Fire
When
a fire destroyed the kitchen at the Three Conies Inn, they got in touch
with PKL, and had a temporary kitchen and coldroom on site within a
matter of days. The facility was used to cook lunchtime and evening
meals while the existing kitchen was rebuilt. The landlord told us that
the facility was so good that it had actually halved their normal
cooking times, which was an unexpected side effect! For more info on this case study, click here.
If you are planning any kitchen or dining refurbishment work, it is also important to ensure that you have plans in place to keep your catering operation running, so as not to lose business. Contact us if you are planning a kitchen refurbishment or other temporary kitchen closure, and we can advise you on suitable temporary facilities to meet your needs, and arrange to help keep you up and running during this period.
This week is PKL Contingency Week, where we’ll be encouraging businesses and organisations to utilise our free bespoke kitchen contingency plans to make sure that they are prepared in case of a kitchen emergency.
Contingency planning is vitally important to ensure the continuation of service in the event of a fire, flood or other unexpected event resulting in unforeseen kitchen closure.
To get your free, bespoke kitchen contingency plan, simply fill out this quick online form with details about your current kitchen, and we’ll send you a personalised kitchen contingency plan. We’ll also keep a copy on file here at PKL, so if the worst happens, all you need to do is give us a ring and we’ll be able to dispatch a suitable temporary facility to you asap.
We have undertaken over 10 contingency hires in the last year alone, as well as many others over the years, so we have a great deal of experience in this area.
Each day this week,
myself and my colleague John Robinson will be blogging about the
importance of kitchen contingency planning in different industries and
sectors and sharing some case studies of different contingency hires
we've worked on over the last few years - I hope you find it useful.
As well as helping you to prepare for kitchen emergencies, we can also supply temporary kitchen and dining facilities during planned kitchen closures such as refurbishments. If you have a planned kitchen closure in the pipeline, we can provide a quote for temporary facilities to keep your operation running.
Please feel free to get in touch with John or myself if you'd like to discuss contingency planning or if you have any planned kitchen closures coming up which require temporary kitchen facilities.
Power Station Experience
When power station outages take place, either planned or otherwise, it often results in a significantly increased number of staff on site. When this happens, additional catering infrastructure is often required to feed the extra numbers and cater for any teams working on sites away from the main canteen. This is where PKL can help.
With most power stations located in remote settings, there is rarely a local community infrastructure to fall back on to assist in the welfare of the contractors. Additionally, due to tight security measures in place to ensure site safety, it is often time-consuming and impractical for contractors to leave site to get food.
In recent years, PKL has provided a number of outage feeding solutions for energy generation stations and energy related industries such as petrochemical plants. This extensive experience has enabled us to tailor our service to the very specific requirements of these sites, and our detailed preparation allows each hire process to run smoothly and efficiently. We know that site safety and security are top priorities, and understand that PKL staff working on site may require induction, security clearance and site escorts.
To minimise installation time and disruption on site, we carry out a site survey prior to delivery and appreciate the need to book in vehicles and drivers beforehand. We always issue risk assessments, method statements and lift plans prior to arriving on site, and our vehicles and any lifting equipment come with the correct certification. We also ensure our drivers and engineers are aware of any specific PPE and ID required by the site.
To demonstrate PKL’s commitment to safety, security and operational excellence, we have the approved accreditations to back up our knowledge and demonstrate our competence in practice. PKL is OHSAS 18001 approved for our occupational health and safety management systems and we also hold both ISO 9001 for process management and ISO 14001 for the implementation and management of environmental management systems. Furthermore, we are SAFEcontractor and CHAS approved and our site operatives are all CSCS approved. We are also a Gas Safe approved contractor and F-Gas approved for refrigeration.
PKL Solutions
PKL can supply a number of different options, depending on each site’s exact requirements.
PKL kitchens are designed to be dual fuel and can run off either gas or electricity. This is an important feature for power station hires as many sites will not allow gas use or storage for safety reasons. All our hot kitchens come with full under canopy fire suppression.
Our newly developed Food Cube satellite feeding stations are designed to ease the pressure on canteen servery lines and save remote workers from spending valuable time getting to and from meal breaks. Food is cooked and prepared in the main canteen and then transferred to the Food Cube located elsewhere on site, where it can be kept warm or refrigerated prior to being served. The Food Cube design allows for the retailing of hot and cold meals, snacks, sandwiches, hot and cold drinks.
Where a cook and serve option is required, we offer three different sizes of Portable Kitchen,all with service hatches to allow a grab and go meal service. These self-contained kitchens use brand name commercial catering equipment for the storage, preparation, production and service of meals.
We also offer fully integrated temporary catering arrangements that comprise multiple buildings linked together to provide a tailor made kitchen solution. These can be linked to an existing dining structure, or to a servery building where the contractors can collect their meals to be eaten in their own mess buildings. Alternatively, we can provide a temporary dining facility on request.
Want More Info?
Please feel free to contact me if you’d like more information on how PKL can help power stations with the provision of catering facilities.
In this post, John Steward, Manager of our Long Term Hire Division, blogs about our temporary hospital kitchens.
As PKL’s hospital kitchen hire specialist, I have extensive experience of arranging temporary kitchen hires for hospitals. There are many reasons why a hospital may require temporary kitchen facilities, such as during planned refurbishments or emergencies such as fire or flood.
Kitchen facilities play a vital role in hospitals and I know the unique set of challenges faced by hospitals requiring temporary facilities. With that in mind, I’ve addressed the top 5 challenges and concerns that hospitals often come to us with when they need temporary kitchen facilities.
I hope this post will give you an insight into how we can help hospitals. Please feel free to
get in touch if you’d like to discuss your requirements of if you’d
like me to prepare a free bespoke kitchen contingency plan for you.
1. Specialist Kitchen Facilities
From my experience working within the acute care hospital sector, I know that many hospital kitchens have to produce food to specific dietary requirements. The exact facilities required can vary from hospital to hospital, and is vitally important for the health and wellbeing of patients.
We have a fleet of over 10,000 items of catering equipment and can work closely with hospital catering teams and dietary staff to provide each hospital with a temporary kitchen facility which is matched with the menu requirements. In the past, our specialist facilities have included temperature-controlled prep areas for the preparation of high risk meals, as well as facilities for the sterilisation of crocks and utensils.
2. Noise and Disruption on Site
No hospital wants teams of shouting workmen on site, mess and dirt everywhere or roads blocked for hours on end. That sounds like a nightmare to me too, so you’ll be pleased to know that we have polite, efficient drivers and engineers who are able to deliver our units at times to suit you, including evenings or weekends if preferred. We also plan delivery and installation in advance, which means our experienced team can get facilities installed quickly and efficiently, causing minimum disruption on site.
3. Quality and Reliability
When your staff and patients are relying on kitchen facilities to keep them well-fed, you’ll want to be sure that these facilities aren’t going to let you down. Not only are our kitchens purpose-built units designed specifically for catering use, they also contain commercial catering equipment which consists of trusted, professional brands. All units and items of equipment undergo thorough, regular maintenance to prevent breakdowns, and we can also supply our facilities with back-up generators which will kick in should power be lost, keeping the kitchen running without disruption.
4. Safety and Compliance
New clients often have questions about the suitability and safety aspects of portable kitchens, so here’s the info you need to know. Our kitchens are manufactured to the highest standard and incorporate the latest health and safety features. Features include a ventilation canopy, auto gas shut off, automatic fire suppression system, easy clean extraction system, infestation-proof construction, 500 lux lighting level, food-safe plastisol steel wall lining, non-slip safety flooring, and insulated fire regulated wall panels, ceilings and floors. Our kitchens also have food-safe wipe clean walls and stainless steel catering equipment, providing a hygienic, easy to clean food preparation environment.
5. Support and Service
I know that hospital kitchens are used from first thing in the morning to last thing at night, so we offer a level of service to support this. Our service and technical support lines are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and we can dispatch an engineer immediately should a kitchen emergency occur. Additionally, an engineer will be with you within 24 hours of all standard service callouts, and any minor matters will be attended to as soon as we have an engineer in the area.
As we enter the festive period, please note that we will be closing on Friday 21st December and reopening on Wednesday 2nd January.
As always, PKL will be operating an emergency response service over the Christmas period. Please note that this is for genuine emergency requirements only and we will not be able to provide sales quotes for projects until the new year.
If you are faced with a requirement for an emergency kitchen over Christmas, please phone 0845 840 42 42 to speak to a member of our on-call team.
From all of us here at PKL, we hope you have an enjoyable Christmas break, and wish you a happy and successful 2013!
