Tips and Tricks for Cool Room Storage

Cool rooms are a common feature of cafes and restaurants. A well-organised cool room will help a chef produce meals that are tasty, balanced, and made from the freshest ingredients. In addition, this type of shelving solution can also be used in bottle shops and any food storage environment.

Setting up a cool room is a process that should be planned carefully and taken seriously. After all, a disorderly, cluttered space could lead to you providing customers with food that is stale or out of date.

Choose the right shelving

Step one is to choose the right type of shelving. Not all types of steel shelving will be appropriate for a cool room environment. To start with, airflow is extremely important. Food and drinks should be kept well ventilated and kept away from dusty, dark corners.

It’s also critical that your shelves are made from a material that allows you to easily clean surfaces using a simple damp cloth. Customers are not going to respond well to wine bottles coated in dust.

Consider adjustable shelving

In addition to choosing commercial shelving made from an appropriate material, consider the advantages of purchasing an adjustable shelving solution. Your cool room needs are unlikely to be the same five or ten years into the future, and it would be a shame to invest in a fixed product that you only get limited use from.

Many shelving providers offer adjustable steel shelving that enables you to rearrange shelf height or layout as required.

Have a structured storage system in place

When it comes to storing food that will be served or sold to customers, it’s of absolute importance that you have a structured storage system in place. You need to know how long food has been sitting in your cool room, and ideally, be following such a process that the freshest food is always served first to the customer.

Whatever system you have in place, make sure your entire staff are aware of it and follow it consistently.

Set up the environment

A cool room is much more than a dark, slightly cold room. There is an array of equipment and materials you can furnish your cool room to ensure an optimum environment.

It’s perhaps worth seeking expert advice on this point but furnishings you might consider include insulation, a refrigeration system, a thermometer, and an appropriate ventilation system.

Monitor energy usage

Depending on the size and scale of your cool room, this type of environment can cost a considerable amount of energy. Strategies you can implement to reduce your overall energy bill and environmental footprint include making sure the cool room door is closed at all times, optimising airflow to ensure all products are exposed to the same level of ventilation, having a structured storage system to minimise the amount of time staff need to spend in the room and engaging in preventative maintenance to keep systems running at an optimal level.

For further information and tailored advice regarding cool room storage and shelving solutions, contact an experienced shelving professional today.