University's new chef is prepped for the challenge
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Executive Head Chef, Julie Frost in the new central kitchen
ÔÇÿI am really excited by this new challenge. ReadingÔÇÖs central kitchen is the first purpose-built unit of its size in the UK.ÔÇÖ
The University extends a warm welcome to Julie Frost, the new Executive Head Chef that will lead the team of chefs working in the University's new central kitchen, recently erected at Pepper Lane.
Julie joins us from Aramark one of the UK's largest food and hospitality services providers where she was Executive Development Chef for Education. At the University, she will lead a team of 32 staff all originally deployed around the campus, but now working together in the central kitchen to produce 90% of the food consumed on the Whiteknights, Bulmershe and London Road campuses. This will amount to 40,000 items per week - including all campus hospitality orders.
"I am really excited by this new challenge;" said Julie. "Reading's central kitchen is the first purpose-built unit of its size in the UK. It is designed to produce food of a consistently high quality in a much more sustainable way than the University does currently.
"Working a day in advance, food will be prepared to order, blast chilled to below 3 degrees in less than 90 minutes and then kept chilled in fridges. It will then be transported around campus to be reheated at the point of consumption. This means suppliers will deliver the bulk of provisions to one location on campus instead of delivering to many sites every day."
Waste going to landfill will be also be drastically reduced. All waste food will be dewatered by a state of the art piece of equipment that removes the moisture from food waste. This reduces its volume of by 85%-95%, meaning that only a small amount of waste material is discharged. This will then be recycled by the University's waste contractor.
Julie and her team will be trialing the production system during the summer, working closely with Jennifer Folliard of the University's Health and Safety Department to ensure that the new system meets the highest possible health and safety standards. We can look forward to tasting Julie and her team's food in every University outlet by the beginning of the new academic year.