Increasing the Efficiency of the School Lunch Kitchen

1948

National Agricultural Library

Program Aid Number 61

Efficient arrangement of space and equipment in the school lunch kitchen is of major importance in economical management. By streamlining the layout, it is often possible to make a kitchen more productive with the same number of workers, thus cutting down the cost of labor, which is usually a very substantial item in the total meal cost. This publication describes a method of appraising school kitchen layouts by a study of food-preparation routes and suggests ways of improving layouts to increase kitchen efficiency. The method may be used in planning for remodeling or for new kitchens.

In large quantity food preparation, the forward movement of food from delivery to service may be compared to the assembly line in a manufacturing plant. A short, direct route that enables workers to prepare and serve meals with the fewest possible steps indicates an efficient kitchen layout. If the route requires much backward or cross travel the layout is wasteful of workers' time and energy. The length of the food-preparation route depends primarily upon (1) size of lunchroom area, (2) arrangement of equipment, (3) location of receiving and storage areas in relation to kitchen, and (4) location of preparation centers with respect to serving unit.