Provider doubles output

The central kitchen of the Mansfield NHS Trust produced 20,000 meals/week for the King's Mill Centre for Healthcare plus healthcare trusts in Central Nottingham and Solihull but it had to more than double that figure (to 45,000) when it secured contracts to supply trusts serving central Manchester and Leicester/Rutland.

This required significant extra capacity including a large coldroom with walk-in freezer section. This has a double refrigeration system to ensure that food is constantly stored at correct temperature. The two systems work together on a timer and, if one should fail, the other automatically takes over.

Two of the Centre's single trolley blast chillers were also replaced with double trolley loading models, increasing the kitchen's blast chilling capacity by 50 per cent. Foster, which provided all refrigeration in conjunction with local dealer Tri-Call, also gave a facelift to Kings Mill's existing coldrooms, merging them into one huge coldroom.

This increased storage capacity and improved flow of meals by creating improved access to the available space.

In constructing a further large coldroom inside the kitchen and almost doubling cold storage capacity, Foster's flexible coldroom panel system enabled modifications to be made to existing arrangements rather than needing to build a new coldroom from scratch.

Capacity was increased further by constructing another new coldroom to store incoming produce. This was constructed outside existing dry storage areas with the wall knocked through to create access.

Supplier: Foster Refrigerator