Inside a mega kitchen

At 55000 sq ft area, this could be the country’s largest commercial kitchen

From the look of it from outside, Voila F9 Gourmet on a two-acre plot in the Financial District of Hyderabad is a white structure with not too much height. Appears to be a well-maintained industrial shed that is probably used as a storehouse. However, step inside and this seemingly unimpressive structure turns out to be a jaw-dropping 55,000 sq ft commercial kitchen with world class facilities. It’s perhaps the largest commercial kitchen in the country.

As many as 50,000 meals can be cooked on a peak day at this facility. Apart from the number, it is the practises and processes involved here that will leave us wondering at the care and caution taken to prepare the food.

Arrival and treatment

Various raw ingredients like fruits, vegetables, pulses and meats are received at different gates throughout the day. “There are specialised zones for receiving, stores, sorting, pre-prep, hot kitchen, confectionery, butchery, quality control, dispatch, temperature controlled refrigeration and also RO and STP / ETP plants. Here most of the raw ingredients are sanitised and stored in temperature-controlled rooms to retain their freshness. Most of the peeling, chopping and grinding are done by machines under supervision. Charts and duty sheets alert the stores about dispatching required amounts of various ingredients for the day,” says Sannjay Bhatija, director, operations.

If the raw green ingredients are treated at the time of arrival the dry ingredients go through a cleaning and sorting process by hand and then passed through magnetic channels to extract any unwanted metallic content.

The powdered spices and flour are sieved and sorted in individual baskets. So in the dry section, the employees are all armed with masks, headnet and gloves.

Cooking for corporates

Home grown Voila with an employee strength of over 850, produces over 25,000 meals everyday for employees of corporate groups like Google, Facebook, Deloitte, Qualcomm, D E Shaw&Co., Arcesium, Uber, Indus School etc. These kitchen employees work in three shifts to cater to breakfast, lunch and dinner. All the meals produced at the central kitchen in Gachibowli are then transported through a fleet of trucks which are also equipped with temperature controlled facilities.

“The kitchen doesn’t only serve the corporates; large-scale events like Sensation, Sunburn also rely on us for their outdoor catering. We as a company follow internationally acclaimed food safety processes like HACCP and ISO 22000:2005 and also run an in-house Microbiology lab to test and monitor every food item that is prepared,” says Vijay Amritraj, CEO.

Inside the kitchen

Inside the hot kitchen, contrary to popular perceptions that a huge kitchen will feel like one big oven with more than 100 cooking stations all working at the same time, the temperature is normal. In one side of the kitchen close to 10 cauldrons are being prepared with marinated meat for a biryani dinner. Six sous chefs upturn and mix the meat with spices in turns as a huge vessels of close to 200 litre capacity of water simmer on the side with potli spices.

Water consumption and garbage

Bigger the facility, the larger the requirement. This facility makes use of close to 2 lakh litres of water, 700 kgs of regular table rice, 1500 kgs of water melon, 7000 eggs, 700 kg of chicken, 500 kg of mutton, 1200 kg of onions, 1100 kg of tomato. The fact that they use close to 200 kg of salt on a daily basis gives an idea of the amount of food that is cooked.

For proper garbage collection and disposal, the facility makes use of garbage collection facilities and some of the water used to clean and wash vegetables is recycled to water the plants and landscape all around. Some of the waste water is also used to clean the outdoor area.