For patients, mealtimes are a familiar moment in the daily routine of a hospital. For your kitchen team, they are a demanding task every day: many special diets, fixed times, limited resources. The right cooking technology depends on your catering concept.
In hospital, others decide many things. The meal remains a familiar moment – a taste you know, a choice you make yourself.
For the kitchen, this means that different diets, portion sizes and textures must be reliably implemented every day – in line with the requirements of the nutrition team, and so that the food arrives appetisingly on the plate.
Hospital catering must take individual needs into account and be economical at the same time. In production, large batches meet small quantities for special diets. In regeneration, different meals must be ready within the scheduled serving window. The right cooking technology supports these processes and relieves the team of recurring tasks.
Many hospitals prepare meals in their own kitchen. Cook & serve and cook & chill are common methods and partly complement each other. Not every hospital goes through the same steps.
Not every kitchen takes on all four steps itself. Organisational form, production method and place of regeneration are three separate decisions:
The production kitchen lays the foundation for every meal. The task is rarely just “cooking a lot”: large main batches, small quantities for special diets and fixed serving times all have to fit together.
Regeneration kitchens also need sufficient capacity – just measured differently: what matters is how many plates or containers must be ready within the serving window, and who operates the appliances.
Many special diets, different batch sizes and fixed times for portioning and distribution: the technology must suit the way your kitchen works. FlexiChef®, FlexiCombi® and FlexiMix® combine several functions and support different production tasks. The specialists of the new MKN OPTIMA® add capacity precisely for individual tasks. Together, they form an equipment line-up that brings quantities, time windows and parallel processes together – developed and manufactured in Wolfenbüttel, Germany.
Process first. Then technology.
The specialists of the MKN OPTIMA® can be combined with the FlexiChef® to form a cooking block – also as a double block. The FlexiChef® integrates neatly into the line.
MKN Connected Kitchen® refers to the connected MKN appliances. Patient ordering, inventory management and food logistics run on your own systems; HACCP responsibility remains with the operator.
More about MKN Connected Kitchen®
Own production on site – and, as a special case, regeneration in a combi steamer directly on the ward: the examples show how different the right solution can look.
“The quality is now much more stable and consistent than it used to be, because it is always the same process.”
A kitchen becomes cost-efficient when appliances are well utilised and recurring work is reduced. These factors are decisive:
Existing connections, ventilation, routes and catering during the conversion should be considered early in the planning – modernisation is often possible step by step.
Kitchen planning is the responsibility of your kitchen planner. MKN contributes its know-how about cooking processes and appliances: we show what our technology can do, answer questions about its use and provide the planner with technical appliance data.
Together with you and your kitchen planner, we tailor MKN cooking technology to your quantities, special diets and processes. Tell us how your catering is organised today and what you would like to change.
Helpful but not required: number of meals, special diets, production or serving times, space and existing equipment.
