Keeping ingredients clean and fresh is one of industrial chillers the rules that a caterer should never break. When food poisoning is to be avoided at all costs, keeping things chilled or frozen to a certain temperature is one of the most important points to remember in the Food Health guidelines. If food is to be kept chilled, it has to be kept at a temperature of 5-8 degrees Celsius. If it has to be kept frozen, it shouldn't go above -18 degrees Celsius to maintain food safety. It is for these reasons, and more, that a conscientious caterer should really invest in quality ice-maker containers, freezers, chillers, and other cold storage equipment that should be present in every working commercial kitchen.

There are many online sites that provide you with units which you can either buy or hire out, depending on your budget. Here are a few units you should include in your kitchen must-have list:

1. Upright fridges-These are useful for storing cooked food that need to stay chilled, as well as raw food that needs to be thawed first before cooking. Make sure to keep these things separately from each other to avoid food contamination and subsequent food poisoning.

There are a number of options you can choose from, mainly differing in size, style, and color. For storage purposes inside your working kitchen, the style and general appearance of the fridge doesn't matter as much as its maximum cubic capacity, so invest your money more on size rather than look. To doubly ensure that the right temperatures are maintained, keep a fridge thermometer inside at all times and have maintenance people come in regularly to service and keep it working optimally.

2. Upright freezers-Freezers are just as important as fridges because they store raw ingredients that you won't be using straight away. It's not always that you get to go out and buy your ingredients, especially your meats, so best to store them in a freezer until you actually need them. Ice cream and other desserts also require storage in a really cold temperature, so that's another purpose for freezers. Try to get a unit that displays the freezer temperature digitally on the outside, so you always know your food is safe at all times. Once again, make sure to keep raw meats and desserts in separate sections of the freezer to avoid the risk of contamination.

3. Blast chillers/freezers-These are units that should be present in every commercial kitchen. You will be doing a lot of cooking as part of your food preparation, and food safety and health guidelines always insist that food meant for storage for later use should immediately be stored once cooked. However, to do this properly, the cooked food's temperature (should be above 70 degrees Celsius) is lowered to below 8 degrees Celsius at the fastest method available. At home, and with smaller quantities of food, one can probably get by without a blast chiller by placing the cooked food on top of a bowl full of ice. But even this method will not be fast enough, and in a business, you need to be safe rather than sorry. The best and most effective way is through the blast chiller. Investing in such units will really maintain food health in your catering kitchen.

4. Ice Makers-Ice is a very important product in every catering function, especially for off-site venues. Cold foods need to stay fresh and cold, and your drinks have to stay chilled. Some cocktails require ice as well. For all these reasons, you would need to make sure that ice is always there so that when the need arises, you are able to produce it instantaneously. Most modern ice makers are self-contained machines, so you don't need to think of where to put the ice once they're made.