Human-led: Designing for Mental Health in Commercial Kitchens

Keeping a kitchen happy and running smoothly relies on your equipment and staff. No more soulless interiors humming with bright white LED lighting and, if you’re lucky, one small window to the outside world. What kind of creativity, passion and productivity does a place like that produce? With eight out of every ten employers in hospitality having experienced mental health challenges in their careers, employers need to support the mental health of their staff.

Caterall’s design team explores how commercial kitchen design plays a part in a kitchen team’s mental health.

Prioritising Natural Light

Thinking about the long hours kitchen staff are working, one of the first things we think about is the materials we choose. Ideally, a kitchen wouldn’t be at the back of a building, but the practicality of building design often demands this. Where possible, consider incorporating windows and skylights into the kitchen design. If natural light is limited, using full-spectrum lighting can help create a more natural and comfortable atmosphere.

We’ve worked with clients who had beautifully designed front of house environments and wanted to install dark tiles in the kitchen. This colour choice does nothing for staff morale or so support a person’s mood. We recommend choosing lighter, brighter colours to bring light and openness to a traditionally small, closed-off space.

Creating a Comfortable Environment

Long shifts in a hot, humid and sweaty kitchen make for a mental and physical toll on kitchen staff. We look for ways to reduce the heat production of equipment and maximise the ventilation, creating a lower temperature for chefs.

Using electrical appliances reduces the ambient heat of cooking and provides lower, safer cooking temperatures. Induction Cooking costs less to run and makes less noise than gas cooking, making for a more comfortable environment. The Global Cooksafe Coalition is pushing for no gas stoves in homes by 2030 due to their negative health impacts, such as asthma and other health conditions. The move from gas to electric has physical and mental health implications for human-led commercial kitchen design.

Thinking about the Kitchen’s Workflow

This is a simple but vital part of kitchen design. When you’re on your feet on a hot summer’s day, that extra few steps from the lowboy to the freezer feels like a marathon. If we can prevent chefs from taking this unnecessary movement every time they need something from the cool room, we support a kitchen’s overall productivity and lessen their workload. This can be achieved by strategically placing workstations, storage, and equipment to create a smooth workflow.

Supporting Social Interaction

Too often, a kitchen’s break room is out the back near the bins, with only the humble milk crate as a chair. No more, we say. Social interaction and a good relationship are integral to a kitchen’s operation. Designing a communal space where both kitchen and front of house staff can take breaks in a relaxing environment helps create an environment where staff are looked after.

At the end of the day, commercial kitchens are a place where budget can often supersede well-being. When designing for our clients, we find a balance between both – because in this industry, finding and keeping good chefs can mean the difference between being around in ten years or not.

Setting the standard for excellence, innovation and craftsmanship, Caterall is WA’s leading provider of hospitality equipment solutions. To speak to our design team about your kitchen fitout, call our team to discuss what your kitchen needs.