Caterers – Grease your cake tins, not your ductwork

Cleaning the kitchen itself is obvious, but behind the scenes, in areas that most kitchen and cleaning staff cannot access, there is a specialist cleaning challenge. As food is cooked, minute droplets of fat, oils and grease become airborne. Once inside the kitchen extract system, hot air cools and grease particles, once held in suspension, form deposits on the inside surfaces of the extraction system.

These grease deposits pose a serious fire risk. Should a kitchen fire start for any reason, it can be made much worse if it reaches the ductwork. The grease deposits on the inner surface of extract ductwork will act as fuel for the fire and the ductwork itself can act as a chimney, causing fire to spread rapidly to other parts of the building. This can make an otherwise containable fire into a major incident, posing a threat to neighbouring properties.

To minimise the risk of fire in the extract system, cleaning should be carried out according to the TR19® Grease specification, which is issued by the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA).