The Dana Cup Kitchen Enters a New Era
Anyone living in their own home will have a kitchen with a cooker and an oven. That is not the case at the Dana Cup, where three daily meals are produced every day for up to 20,000 people. It requires equipment on a completely different scale. However, new times are on the way. The old wood-fired “goulash cannons” from 1956 are likely to be phased out and replaced by new, much more sustainable solutions.
This is certainly the wish of kitchen manager Jens Klemmensen, and he has already taken the first step by introducing an electric cooking vessel capable of handling most tasks efficiently.
"As a trial, we have purchased a 300-litre cooking vessel requiring 32,000 watts of electricity, and we have already gained a lot of valuable experience from it. In connection with the Danish Championship in Skills earlier this year, high-capacity power cables were installed in the area, meaning electricity will be available if we hopefully decide to invest in three more vessels as replacements for two of the old solutions," Jens Klemmensen explains.
If his vision becomes reality, he also sees a future with six induction cookers requiring 36,000 watts, as well as ten ovens.
"With ovens, we will have much better opportunities to manage frozen goods and only defrost what we actually need. This will allow us to achieve significant savings," says Jens Klemmensen, who estimates that the kitchen could save at least DKK 400,000 per year with the new investments.
"Some people may think that we will put a huge strain on the electricity grid. And we will, but during Week 30 many industrial companies are closed for their summer holidays anyway, so we will not be causing problems for anyone," he points out.
The Dana Cup kitchen manager envisions that the new equipment could eventually be installed in containers, allowing staff to work protected from the weather. At the same time, a container-based solution would make it possible to rent out the kitchen equipment for other events, generating additional income and making the investment even more attractive.
