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September/October 2023 XIV MAGAZINE same packaging used for the so-called doggy bags can be rewarding for the customer or a vehicle to communicate the name of the restaurant and its attention to a sustainable practice. THE ROLE OF THE EQUIPMENT Technology in the kitchen can help prevent waste, but can itself be a source of inefficiency, especially from an energy consumption and performance point of view. In our country, there are over 9 million pieces of equipment installed in professional kitchens, including ovens, hobs, fridges and hoods. Significant numbers, like the resulting energy consumption: catering today represents the most energy-intensive of the entire Italian service sector. An issue that is particularly felt today, both for its economic implications and for the impact that such consumption generates on the environment. And if you think that some of the equipment installed is over 10 years old, you can understand the extent of the problem. This topic is followed with particular attention by EFCEM Italy, which brings together companies in the catering and hospitality equipment sector. “Until not so many years ago,’ explains EFCEM, ‘the replacement of a machine in the professional kitchen was almost exclusively due to physical obsolescence, which meant that a typical product had an average life of more than 15 years. Today, views have changed, and replacement is also linked to functional obsolescence criteria in which electronics and consumption play a key role. This does not detract from the fact that, if we take a snapshot of the current situation, about a quarter (24% to be precise) are machines that are more than 10 years old. The most critical situation is that of hoods and extraction systems, which are particularly penalised with 36% obsolescence and a renewal time of more than 30 years. The critical elements linked to the use of obsolete equipment, according to the association, are three: performance, consumption, reliability. Performance. The evolution of professional products in the last decade has accelerated at an unprecedented pace compared to the history of the sector, thanks to an increasingly articulated and complex demand and the availability of technologies, electronics above all, which in the past were only a legacy of consumer goods. Today, a professional machine is networked, capable of learning and replicating work cycles, optimising performance autonomously and self- monitoring by signalling any anomaly. Consumption. This sector has certainly arrived late compared to household appliances in tackling the issue of reducing energy consumption in a structured manner, the European legislator having given priority to mass production. Today only professional refrigeration cabinets are equipped with energy labelling, although other certifications are in the pipeline. “Energy labelling aside,” says EFCEM, “we estimate that over a decade the energy consumption of different equipment has fallen by more than 39% for the same performance, and that each new project leads to a 5-10% reduction in consumption compared to the previous one. A simple 600-litre professional upright refrigerator consumed about 1834 kWh per year 10 years ago, today the same latest generation consumes about 80 kWh. The resulting savings in the bill are therefore around 330 €/year (calculation made with an energy cost of 0.19 €/kWh). Similar considerations could be made on the subject of water consumption: today, in the overall balance of water consumption of a kitchen system, those related to dishwashers are the least critical. Reliability. The curve of reliability of a product over time does not respond to linear criteria but undergoes a rapid drop as a function of the conditions of use. “It is believed,” emphasises EFCEM, “that after 10 to 15 years of operation under normal conditions, the level of maintenance interventions becomes economically critical, even if the real problem in the sector is not that of reliability, which is, on average, very high, but of sudden failures that can put the entire operation of the kitchen in crisis. NEW MANAGEMENT MODELS The management of costs, the opportunities offered by increasingly advanced management models and the presence of operators with highly differentiated professional profiles, require a general redesign of the entire kitchen structure and its processes. “This context,” says the association, “represents a great development opportunity for all production ‘tools’. Machines are required to have a marked operational autonomy: equipment must increasingly be able to replicate processes and adapt them autonomously according to defined parameters. This obviously does not mean that the figure of the chef will disappear, but that the role will change and qualify, requiring different skills. Connectivity is essential: machines must communicate with each other within the same premises, with service facilities and with remote control consoles. Low consumption must be seen both in the logic of the individual machines and in the global plant logic. Energy recovery must become a norm in the future. AT PAGE 46 ON THE ROAD The Food Valley of Italy THE EMILIA-ROMAGNA AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD INDUSTRY SYSTEM ENCOMPASSES A UNIQUE HERITAGE OF TRADITION AND EXCELLENT QUALITY. A REGIONAL CUISINE THAT