More than 8.5 million people have visited Cadbury World, which can be found on a tree-lined avenue in the heart of Bournville, since it opened, with numbers going up byan average of 60,000 a year as new and improved attractions are introduced.
Starting out with the likes of Chocolate Coronation Street, as featured in Cadbury’s sponsorship of ITV’s flagship serial, the visitor centre now homes everything from Purple Planet, a digital, interactive zone where you can play in chocolate rain, grow cocoa beans and see yourself as a chocolate sculpture, to The Aztec Jungle, home of the cocoa bean.
There’s plenty more to see and do too, including the obligatory visit to Cadbury’s Demonstration Area, a mouth-watering part of the tour certain to leave visitors hungry.
Cadbury Café, a self-service restaurant, offers lunch, light snacks and drinks, and has been a popular stop off for chocolate fiends navigating their way around the centre since it opened.
Such a dramatic rise in visitor numbers, however, was putting enormous pressure on the 20-year-old café kitchen, originally designed for a far smaller operation. Struggling to cope with delivering up to 900 cooked meals a week, management were forced to have a rethink.
Working closely with Cadbury World’s contract caterer Redcliffe Catering, commercial kitchen designer and supplier CHR Equipment put together a sweet solution.
The facility had to be at least up to latest food hygiene standards, easily maintained and cleaned, easy and safe to operate, and able to deliver the volume and variety of dishes expected from a top UK attraction. Crucially, it had to be as sustainable as possible.
Paul Neville, CHR Equipment sales director, said: “We wanted to use manufacturers that were building equipment made to last and allow Cadbury World to make significant energy cost savings throughout its catering operation,” he said.
In the new £250,000 kitchen, electricity is the main fuel to power the innovative equipment, including two twin pan fryers with infra red chip dump and multi-point induction unit.
For maximum efficiency and a more European way of cooking, CHR opted for three Compact Professional combi-ovens from MKN, claimed to be the smallest six grid oven in the world and all built in one section with a seamless stainless steel top for optimum hygiene.
Refrigeration is integrated into hand-built stainless steel units on rodent free, water repellent plinths, with the plant away from the main cooking zone to minimise excess heat build-up.
Paul said: “Thinking ‘outside the box’ in how to power the whole kitchen and maintain an efficient working environment has meant we have reduced ventilation requirements by 30 percent over the old kitchen, and overall energy consumption by 20 percent, even though the kitchen is busier and producing more meals.
“Using gas as a cooking fuel has a major impact in ventilation demands as you have to bring up 85 percent more air to maintain the ambient temperature and air quality, and the plant itself generates heat. Switching to electricity with the latest, energy-efficient equipment has created a kitchen that will help Cadbury World deliver a sweet experience for more than half a million visitors a year for years to come.”
Gerrard Baldwin, Cadbury World general manager, said: “It was a tricky project, to create a modern environment that would be easy to clean and sustainable, installed with minimal impact on our day to day business. A key aim was to reduce the power requirement, in line with Cadbury’s corporate sustainability policy, and we are achieving an overall saving of about 30 percent better than we hoped for. Using CHR and suppliers such as MKN delivered everything we asked, and more, on time and on budget.”
Founded almost 20 years ago, CHR Equipment has grown to become one of the leading commercial kitchen companies, delivering solutions for venues as diverse as independent pubs through to Michelin-starred restaurants and stadia.
As one of CHR Equipment’s trusted suppliers, MKN provides a 600-strong range of appliances in eight different lines, from innovative single units to complete cooking islands.
