My very first engineering position was in the food service
industry. In this position I was responsible for the design of all food
service trays, carts, and tables used in the manufacturing process of
Kahn's hot hogs in Kentucky.
Though there aren't any
tricks to designing and engineering products for the food service
industry, there are a couple of things that you need to know to create
effective food service industry products.
The first thing is material
choice. You only have two as it relates to food preparation. The first is
stainless steel. You use stainless steel for food prep tables and carts.
Why? Stainless steel cleans up easily. Stainless steel doesn't corrode and
rust either which makes it an excellent material choice.
The second choice is
aluminum, primarily used for baking trays. Aluminum is selected because of
it's uniform and rapid distribution of heat to the items being baked.
Aluminum baking trays have been used by the finest chefs throughout
history. Below is an AutoCAD rendering of an aluminum tray that I designed
many years ago. Thickness needs to be kept at a minimum of .074" to
minimize warping under baking conditions.
Download the AutoCAD
Solids Model of the Aluminum Baking Tray
Download the AutoCAD 2D 3
View Drawing (242KB) of the Food Tray
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