Are New Combination Cooking Tech  Revolutionising Food Service Industry?

Sanandan Sudhir, CEO and Founder,On2Cook

The past decade has seen the food service industry evolve like never before. While the number of people dining out has increased manifold, a marked increase has also been seen in people ordering from home. The customer has become more impatient, as they want quick service, without compromising on food quality. This rising customer expectation is the foremost concern of the food industry, whereas they are marred by energy volatility, labour scarcity, and a global push for sustainability. What, then, is the way out? Let’s find out.

Commercial kitchens need a revolution where automation and AI could become the key runners while ensuring timely delivery of excellent quality food, every time. We now have AI-enabled combination cooking devices that are revolutionising the food service industry.

What Is Programmable Heat and Combination Cooking?

Traditionally commercial kitchens relied on flame-based cooking and sometimes aligned microwave cooking. However, these two can be combined together to get faster results. Programmable heat is the ability of a single device to control and modulate multiple heat sources. Often they can be set as per a digital recipe, and cooking can be done in real time. Thus, instead of relying on a big burner or powerful oven, different technologies such as induction, microwave, steam and impinged air can be combined to cook food. It results in efficient cooking, with faster turnaround time and consistent quality.

The widely available combination cooking devices not only help in cooking using multiple modes but also save up to 70 per cent cooking time and 50 per cent energy, keeping the nutrients intact. So, cooking a piece of chicken becomes much easier, as you can cook it from inside with the help of a microwave and from outside with induction. The texture and nutrients remain the same, as fast cooking helps to preserve them. This perfectly cooked chicken in a fraction of the time requires minimal efforts from the kitchen staff, since the SOPs have been laid down, and they are followed to the ‘T’ due to automation. The chicken will turn out exactly the same every time, since the stirrers and moisture nozzles control that aspect of cooking too.

Why Programmable Heat Is Crucial Right Now

As we see in the commercial kitchens, the food service industry is facing challenges from multiple aspects. Even as there is labour scarcity since trained kitchen staff hardly stay for long, it also results in a steep rise in operational costs. Kitchen owners are also marred by the increasing price of gas and electricity that ultimately impact their profits. With the quick service restaurants, consumers now expect quick service and they cannot compromise on the quality of food.

Moreover, there is a need to rethink energy use in the kitchens and reduce emissions and carbon footprints. Devices that address these pain-points are the ones that understand them well. Today’s programmable heat devices only consume electricity when cooking, thereby reducing idle consumption of energy. Moreover, consistent SOPs ensure that there are fewer people needed in the kitchen, and it becomes easier to scale operations, even as the pressure on finding highly trained chefs goes down, since the device can do all the cooking.

Quality, Speed and Sustainability

While using traditional cooking methods-soluble, one is often faceddilemma –dilemma- whether to get that crispy exterior or retain moisture, as both are not possible at the same time. With the new age combination cooking devices, this is no choice; choice, you can get both. As they preserve the water soluble nutrients through combination cooking of microwave and induction, you get food that retains its vibrant colours, retains the structure and still has enhanced flavour. With the help of such devices, you can be sure of nutrient retention, which is lost during conventional water-based cooking.

Incredible Speed and Throughput

Another big problem that commercial kitchens face is with frozen food. It needs to undergo thawing logistics, which leads to wastage of product as well as a longer cooking cycle. The combination cooking devices take care of the thawing process as well as part of their predefined digital recipe standardisation process. Ultimately the time to table food gets reduced to 7-10 minutes instead of the traditional 25-30 minutes.

Health and Sustainability in Frying

Traditional frying is cumbersome and needs the kitchen to maintain a separate wok for frying that is kept at optimal temperature, thereby leading to wastage of energy too. The microwave-assisted frying devices are a game changer, as they shorten the frying time, lower cycle times and cut oil turnover needs. It has been seen that consumption of oil came down to just 2 litres instead of 8-10 litres, along with a reduced preheat phase of just 5-6 minutes. What we get is food that is healthier, but also lowered operating costs and a reduced environmental footprint for the kitchen owners.

Smart Ventilation for Smarter Kitchens

A commercial kitchen is a heat furnace at work as chefs dole out dish after dish. Chimneys and constant ducting also don’t help in the long run. The combination cooking device addresses this problem with ventless recirculating units that help in apt settings, reduced energy consumption and infrastructure costs. To reduce HVAC burden, hooded lines can be paired with demand-controlled ventilation that makes the kitchen air breathable.

Profitable Operations Through Smart Devices

As they revolutionise cooking, one recipe at a time, such devices also bring about great profits in the kitchen economics. Energy consumed is not measured and calculated with portions served, and idle hours are just that. With the consolidation of devices, we see a kitchen countertop that is less cluttered. While the device enables combination cooking, it comes with degradation; thus, failure of a component does not mean the entire device shuts down. They also have lower HVAC loads, leading to reduced rent and utility expenses.

AI: The Secret Behind Consistency and Efficiency

When such devices are supported with AI, data collection, inference and using it for one’s own benefits become easier. Everything is noted down – from infrared temperature to humidity, weight to even acoustics. Thus, it customises the various steps from microwave cycles to induction power, steam percentage and airflow as per the requirement of each dish. This can then be replicated across multiple outlets. The same AI-based app can also automate the order-taking process and train others to leverage the system. It reduces the reliance on verbal or printed kitchen order tickets.

A Transformative Future for Commercial Cooking

The integration of AI and combination cooking technology is changing the foodservice sector in unprecedented ways. We are witnessing a high level of consistency, speed, and sustainability never before seen. These smart appliances use a range of cooking methods such as microwaving, pressure cooking, air frying, deep frying, convection, and steaming to improve kitchen operations, reduce energy footprint, and produce successfully executed recipes with increased ease.  As commercial kitchens start to adopt this cutting-edge innovation, the powerful mix of advanced automation and AI precision is set to elevate culinary standards worldwide, boosting efficiency and profits while catering to the tastes of today’s diners.