United States: Finland-based technology provider in indoor air solutions for professional kitchens, Halton Group, and worldwide supplier of commercial foodservice equipment, Welbilt, have announced entering into a strategic alliance to facilitate the integration of Halton’s ventilation systems into a wide range of Welbilt’s equipment to better meet the needs of their customers.

According to a press communiqué issued by Halton, the company said that through this alliance, it aims to speed up international sales and further development of its latest innovations, such as the mobile mini-kitchen solution, Halton MobiChef.

The alliance, the communiqué highlighted, provides a framework to combine the best from both companies’ innovation teams to develop system solutions with specific focus on the following areas:

• Increase kitchen output while reducing kitchen footprint
• Improve speed of service and overall kitchen ergonomics
• Better manage kitchen temperatures to improve employee comfort and maximise productivity
• Reduce total building energy consumption.

“We are pleased to partner with Halton as we believe that peak kitchen performance requires the integration of the cooking equipment to the ventilation systems,” Hubertus Muehlhaeuser, President and CEO of Manitowoc Foodservice/Welbilt, said. “This integration includes the acceleration of digital technology, kitchen control systems, remote monitoring including KitchenConnect to provide better systems and service over the equipment life cycle. The alliance also complements our fitkitchenSM approach to develop high output kitchens in smaller footprints,”

Commenting on the alliance, Mika Halttunen, Chairman of the Board at Halton Group, said: “We also believe there is significant growth potential in mobile cooking globally. Partnering with Welbilt can help us expand our MobiChef solution by including an electric cooking suite, complete with refrigeration and have the combined products UL Listed for rapid customer adoption.”