Australian Owned & Operated
← All industries
Food Production & Central Kitchen Equipment
Central production kitchens and food manufacturers cook in batches, then chill fast. That means bulk vegetable prep, high-volume processors and mixers, sous vide and vacuum packing, and blast chillers sized to pull hot food through the danger zone inside two hours. Commercial Kitchen Appliances supplies the full production line, ex-GST, Australia-wide.
- Australia-wide delivery
- SilverChef finance available
- Manufacturer-backed warranty
- Granville showroom
Popular in this range
A selection from 241 products, priced ex-GST.
-
-15% -
-32% -
-32% -
-15% -
-36% -
-32% -
-32% -
-32%
Who this range is for
Central production units, cook-chill kitchens, meal-prep and ready-meal businesses, aged-care and hospital production kitchens, and small food manufacturers scaling out of a restaurant-sized setup. If you cook in batches and chill for later service rather than plating to order, this is your range.
How a central production kitchen is built up
A production kitchen is a line, not a room. Product moves one way - raw prep, batch cook, rapid chill, pack, then hold or transport. Each stage has to keep pace with the one before it, so size the whole line to your slowest step.
1
Bulk vegetable prep
The stage most often left manual for too long, and the easiest labour saving to justify.
| Veg prep machines | Replaces hours of knife work. A single operator can process what took three by hand. |
| Veg cutter discs | The disc set is what makes the machine versatile - slice, julienne, dice and grate from one base. |
| Food processors | Bowl-cutter work for pastes, purees and emulsions where a veg cutter will not do. |
| Vegetable and food processors | Combination units where floor space only allows one machine. |
2
Batch cooking and mixing
Size to your standard production batch, then add headroom - never run a mixer at full rated capacity continuously.
| Planetary mixers | Doughs, batters and bulk mixes. Choose bowl capacity above your standard batch rather than at it, so the machine is not run at its limit continuously. |
| Cooking robots | Automated stir-and-cook for sauces and bulk wet dishes - removes constant manual attendance. |
| Bratt pans | Braise, sear and boil in one tilting vessel. The workhorse of bulk wet cooking. |
| Boiling pans | High-volume stocks, soups and sauces where a bratt pan lacks the depth. |
3
Rapid chilling
The legal and practical bottleneck of any cook-chill operation. Undersize this and the whole line stalls.
| Blast chillers | Pulls hot food through the danger zone fast. Rate by kg of hot food per cycle, not by cabinet size. |
4
Pack and preserve
Where shelf life is won or lost.
| Chamber vacuum sealers | Chamber machines handle liquids, which external sealers cannot. Essential for sauces and sous vide. |
| Sous vide equipment | Precise low-temperature cooking with consistent yield across large batches. |
| Food storage containers | Standardised sizes so chilled stock stacks and racks predictably. |
5
Hold and transport
Relevant if you supply satellite sites, wards or off-site service.
| Holding cabinets | Keeps regenerated food at safe service temperature without further cooking. |
| Bain marie trolleys | Moves hot food to point of service in aged care, hospitals and function venues. |
| Catering trolleys | Transport between production and satellite kitchens. |
Blast chiller vs blast freezer
These look alike and are frequently confused at quoting stage. They solve different problems, and buying the wrong one is an expensive mistake to discover after commissioning.
| Blast chiller | Blast freezer | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Drops cooked food rapidly to refrigerated temperature | Drops food below freezing fast enough to form small ice crystals |
| Use it for | Cook-chill production served within days | Longer-term frozen stock and preserving texture in delicate items |
| Cycle time | Shorter - designed to bring product through the danger zone inside the legal window | Longer - freezing takes considerably more time than chilling |
| Throughput per day | Higher - more cycles per shift from the same footprint | Lower - fewer cycles, so size up if freezing is your main output |
| Effect on texture | Preserves texture and moisture in chilled product | Small ice crystals mean far less cell damage than a static freezer |
| Typical choice | Most central production and aged-care kitchens | Bakeries, seafood, and producers holding stock for weeks or months |
What drives the cost of a production line
We have not published dollar ranges, because the figure is dominated by chilling capacity and degree of automation, both of which vary enormously by operation. What we can tell you is what moves the total.
Blast chilling is usually the largest single item and the one worth over-specifying, because it caps how much you can legally produce per shift. A useful sequencing rule when budget is staged: buy chilling capacity first, bulk prep second, automation last - under-chilling limits output immediately, whereas manual prep only costs labour.
Three-phase power is required for most bulk cooking and chilling equipment, so confirm supply and switchboard capacity before committing.
For a real figure on your own project, send us your floor plan and menu and we will quote the line. Finance is available through SilverChef, with approvals up to around $65,000 in about five minutes.
Food safety rules that shape a cook-chill kitchen
The rule that dictates your equipment sizing is the cooling requirement in Food Standards Code 3.2.2: cooked potentially hazardous food must be cooled from 60C to 21C within two hours, and from 21C to 5C within a further four hours. A blast chiller is the practical way to meet this at volume - ambient or walk-in cooling will not achieve it for hot bulk product.
Because of that, blast chillers should be rated on kilograms of hot food per cycle, not on cabinet volume. A cabinet that holds ten trays but is only rated for a fraction of that weight in hot product will fail to hit the curve on a full load.
Surfaces and equipment in food-handling areas must meet Food Standards Code 3.2.3 - smooth, impervious and cleanable, which is why 304 stainless is standard throughout. Most production operations also run a documented HACCP-based food safety program, with temperature logging at the chill step as a critical control point.
Requirements vary by state and by the kind of food you produce, so confirm with your local council or state food authority before finalising the line.
Central production kitchen FAQs
How do I size a blast chiller for my production volume?
Size it on kilograms of hot food per cycle, not on how many trays fit. Work out your largest single cook batch in kilograms, then choose a unit rated at or above that for a full chill cycle. If you cook 80 kg of bulk product at once, a chiller rated for 40 kg will need two cycles and will hold up the entire line.
What is the difference between cook-chill and cook-freeze?
Cook-chill rapidly cools cooked food to refrigerated temperature for service within days, then regenerates it at point of use. Cook-freeze takes it below freezing for storage over weeks or months. Cook-chill gives better eating quality and a shorter capital path; cook-freeze buys you far longer storage but needs more freezing capacity and cold storage.
Do I need three-phase power for a production kitchen?
For most bulk equipment, yes. Blast chillers, larger planetary mixers, bratt pans and boiling pans commonly require three-phase, and running several at once places real demand on the switchboard. Have a licensed electrician confirm both supply and switchboard capacity before you commit to a line, since upgrading supply after fit-out is expensive and slow.
Why use a chamber vacuum sealer instead of an external one?
Chamber machines evacuate air from a sealed chamber rather than drawing it through the bag, so they handle liquids without pulling sauce into the seal. For production kitchens packing soups, sauces and sous vide items, that is the deciding factor. External sealers are cheaper and fine for dry goods but will struggle with anything wet.
Can a combi oven replace a bratt pan?
Not for bulk wet cooking. A combi excels at roasting, steaming and regeneration, but a bratt pan sears, braises and boils large volumes in one tilting vessel and empties directly into containers. Most production kitchens run both, using the combi for dry-heat and regeneration and the bratt pan for wet bulk work.
How much vegetable prep capacity do I actually need?
Work backwards from your slowest downstream step. If your chiller handles 60 kg per cycle and you run four cycles a shift, prep only needs to reliably feed that. Buying prep capacity well beyond what chilling can absorb just moves the bottleneck without increasing output.
Do you supply equipment for aged care and hospital kitchens?
Yes. Aged-care and hospital production is one of the main uses for this range - typically blast chilling, bulk cooking, and bain marie trolleys for ward or dining-room service. Because these settings carry additional food-safety obligations around vulnerable groups, we would recommend confirming your specification against your food safety program before ordering.
Supplying another kind of venue? We stock commercial kitchen equipment for every trade in Australian food service.
← Browse all industries