Professional chefs know that, there is no stopping the digitalization of commercial kitchens. Now, the questions are which system effectively supports kitchen processes, and who sets new standards in product quality, reliability, automation, and service? RATIONAL developed ConnectedCooking, a free cloud-based network that gives new momentum to the collaboration between the chef and the appliance without forgetting its core task: cooking with imagination.
"When developing ConnectedCooking, we always kept in mind: what are the tasks that require a lot of attention, but can be taken away from the chef,” says Matthias Lahr, Digital Product Manager at RATIONAL, when describing the considerations for kitchen networks. As an example, Lahr mentions a caterer who is responsible for 800 meals a day in three kitchens. Normally, the balancing act of different kitchen equipment, different levels of experience among the kitchen staff, and different cooking practices can be quite the handful. One mistake and the quality drops, and everyone can tell. ConnectedCooking can become an assistant for this juggling act and even increase productivity. This reason alone is enough for us to consider that the future of the professional kitchen is with a network that connects to smartphones, tablets, or PCs. Whether one, two, or more kitchens, with ConnectedCooking all RATIONAL appliances can use the same cooking programs, and the chef can access their appliances with a single click, and control the cooking processes, even remotely. Push notifications can help the platform log capacity usage and vacancies, and adapt the production processes accordingly.
Mr. Lahr also makes another important point, "A challenge for any kitchen is maintaining hygiene standards. So we built in automatic HACCP documentation in ConnectedCooking." All relevant data is recorded and saved for a certain period, as the chef's core task is creativity and not the documentation of temperatures. You could not be better prepared for the future and with less risk, confirms Thorsten Machold, Head of Product Management at aveato Catering AG, Berlin: "When ConnectedCooking was released in February 2017, I was one of the first in Germany to connect their kitchen. The benefits of day-to-day work and the absolute reliability of our data have convinced us."