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Australian Firm Caters to Industry
Tuesday, 10 February 2009Serving 1000 people with a hot meal within a 10-minute time span would be a nightmare for most people.
However, this is a challenge that Versigen Australia helps Australia’s conference centres, hospitals, aged care facilities and the like meet every day.
Versigen is a supplier of specialist catering equipment that allows meals to be prepared in advance, chilled, transported and stored at a constant temperature and then regenerated, or heated, to serving temperature to meet specific deadlines.
In recent weeks, Versigen has won a major contract to provide equipment to the University of Queensland and has contracts in most other states of Australia.
Versigen also provides specialist equipment such as banqueting trolleys, servery counters, food display units, hot cupboards and bain maries.
Versigen Director, Mr John Stening, said regeneration equipment was widely used where there was a requirement to provide a large number of hot meals in a short space of time.
"In convention centres and hotels, the equipment allows chefs to prepare and plate-up meals during quieter periods and have them heated and ready to serve at the appropriate time," he said.
"Many hospitals and aged care facilities also source their food from central kitchens, with the meals chilled, transported and held until they are required and then heated and served.
"Our units have the capacity to both chill prepared meals to between two and four degrees Celsius and then heat them when required, reducing handling and improving efficiency."
Mr Stening said Versigen was formed after a visit to Scottish catering equipment company E&R Moffat*, which is considered the leader in the manufacture of specialist catering equipment.
"I had previously worked in the food industry and noticed the equipment that E&R Moffat was producing was far superior to that which was available in Australia," he said.
Mr Stening said regeneration technology had come a long way from microwaving left- overs or heating dinner plates over saucepans of hot water that most people had tried at home.
He said modern equipment controlled temperatures to ensure food did not dry out or burn during regeneration and enabled chilled meals to be served hot as if they were fresh from the kitchen.
"Today a single unit can refrigerate and store cooked food until a pre-determined time and then automatically heat the food to the appropriate and safe serving temperature," he said.
"Some units will enable the food to be kept at serving temperature for extended periods with no loss of quality."
Mr Stening said Versigen now had offices in Adelaide and NSW and was about to open a new showroom in Sydney.
*E&R Moffat has no association with Moffat Pty Ltd or the Moffat Group