PKL's Macmillan Coffee Morning

Like many people across the country, we held a Macmillan coffee morning here at PKL today
as part of the charity's "World's Biggest Coffee Morning" fundraising event.
 

The canteen has been filled with bunting, balloons and more cake than you could shake a stick at, and PKL staff have been ducking in throughout the day to top up their sugar levels and part with their hard-earned cash!

PKL staff are always willing to rise to the occcasion for these types of events, especially if bunting is involved, so we now have enough cake to last us until Christmas... at least!

Treats on offer have included Pat's lemon drizzle cake, Sue's chocolate brownies, Linda's blueberry and lemon cake, Manisha's homemade sausage rolls (always a popular choice in the office!) plus many more fantastic offerings.

Certain members of staff have also quite literally stepped up to the plate and have selflessly taken it upon themselves to ensure they try every type of cake on offer, so as not to offend anyone's feelings - what heroes!
 

This is a really great cause, so if you haven't managed to go to a coffee morning today, you can still donate to Macmillan online here.

EDIT: After the final count, we raised a total of £170!

Introducing SchoolKitchens.com

Today, we have launched SchoolKitchens.com, our new-look school kitchens website. With the announcement of the School Food Plan over the summer, we decided to pull all our information for schools into one central resource, to make it as easy as possible for schools and local authorities to access details of all the different school catering products we offer.

SchoolKitchens.com is designed to complement our 8 Point Plan for Schools which we created in response to the School Food Plan, and outlines our options for school kitchen facilities, food kiosks and teaching kitchens.

The website includes details of our KitchenPods, FoodCubes, KitchenFM for Schools, Food Technology Kitchens and Temporary Kitchen & Dining Facilities. It also features a new interactive funding map, which details various sources of funding available to help schools procure our products.

As well as product information and funding options, the new website gives you the opportunity to read PKL case studies from the education sector, showing how our products have made a difference to schools across the country.

SchoolKitchens.com also ties in with the launch of our new KitchenFM for Schools product, whereby schools can contract hire all their catering equipment from us, giving them a low, fixed monthly cost with no large capital outlay. With all service and maintenance included in the package, plus the opportunity to change the equipment if the school menu changes, it provides a low risk option with no capital expenditure. What’s more, the Children’s Food Trust are on board with KitchenFM for Schools, and for every contract undertaken, we will make a donation to support their valuable work.

I’d love to hear your feedback on the new website – take a look and let me know what you think!

Food Cube Installation

One of our Food Cubes was installed at an academy school near Birmingham last week, ready for the new school year. We took a few photos of the installation, as clients often ask us what to expect!

The academy is expanding to take on more pupils this September, so contacted us needing additional servery space at breaks and lunchtimes. A PKL Food Cube is an ideal solution to enable the school to cope with the increased pupil numbers and continue to allow easy access to school food for all pupils and staff.

The bespoke exterior was chosen by the academy and was our first all-building wrap. Our Food Cubes are incredibly versatile in terms of the range of exterior options available, and we worked with the academy to help make their ideas a reality.

The Food Cube was built and fitted out here at PKL, so the finished unit was loaded up onto our truck ready to go. Driver Stuart and Project Manager Tim then took the Cube on a trip up the motorway to the academy.
 

The Food Cube is loaded onto the truck, ready to leave PKL

The Food Cube arrives on site at the academy

The truck's Hiab crane is used to lift the Food Cube into position

Once in position, the Food Cube is detatched from the crane

The Food Cube in its final position

Now the Food Cube has been installed, the next step is to connect it up to services to get it running. This only takes a few hours, so there is very little work to be done on site. The academy also has exciting plans to carry out some more work on the land surrounding the Cube, adding decking and other features to turn it into an outdoor café style outlet.

As the Cube has been installed during the holidays, this means that it will be ready for the start of the new school year next month, and the school’s catering operation will be able to hit the ground running!

If you'd like more information on our Food Cubes or would like to see how a Food Cube may be able to help your school or business, visit our website or feel free to contact me for a chat.

PKL Contingency Week – Part 5

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!

PKL Contingency Week – Part 4

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.

PKL Contingency Week – Part 3

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.

PKL Contingency Week – Part 2

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.