The best intentions you can have for a Queensland commercial kitchen is to design it for food production and food safety. Whether you want it in your home or in a separate facility, the best way is to design it first so you can complete your work efficiently.

Regardless of whether you are making a few batches of cookies a week for employees or supplying food to all the grocery stores in your area, your kitchen would need to meet a list of requirements for cleanliness and safe food handling as first requirement.

Licensing

As a rule, all kitchens intended for commercial business need to be inspected and licensed. When working with the local health department even at the design stage, you need to review your plans to make sure they meet their requirements (suitable dishwashing and refrigeration equipments).

Also, after paying your license fees, expect to have more inspections. The first inspection was for your plans on paper. This time, authorities would like to find out if you had altered parts of the plan and they would like to see it if it was an improvement.

You would also need to know that there is a renewal of license permits annually. A retail food company will be licensed and inspected by a municipal or country health department while wholesale operations are typically licensed and inspected by the state or the federal agriculture department reps.

Food equipment

Big kitchens for commercial purposes use professional equipment. These are usually made from stainless steel with its built-in advantage of being easily cleaned and sanitized. Professional refrigeration equipment is also designed to cool foods quickly to preclude food-borne illnesses.

Industrial stoves are designed to have more intense heat output than those used in homes and with provisions to cook in volume.

Dishwashing equipment have requirements of reaching temperatures hot enough to sanitize and provision of having multiple compartments to wash, rinse and sanitize by hand.

Layout and work flow

Although local health authorities are basically more concerned on safety with your kitchen layout (not installing a mop sink too near to a food preparation sink, for instance) successful kitchens are usually designed likewise for easy flow of work.

One necessity is having sufficient space between appliances for employees to move and work without bumping into one another. Another necessity is a counter space that should be big enough for everyone to be able to function efficiently. Efficiency in work translates to faster completion of orders.

Once orders are executed faster, customers are satisfied and the experience will last until he comes back expecting the same service efficiency. This ultimate goal of customer satisfaction is the yardstick of all restaurants, and all are due to better layout and better workflow.

For a business whose measure of success is the total contribution of satisfaction points (quality of food and others) there are other things that add up to the reputation of a commercial kitchen. (Mostly, they are associated with a successful caterer.) However, newcomers are coming in daily and will try to swing the votes of clients and customers to their favor.