Centralized Production and Assembly Kitchen

Feeding Global Innovators

Within a highly technical industrial kitchen facility, JENSEN makes room for human connection.

Once Campus, One Kitchen

When a dynamic global company sought to consolidate its distributed headquarters catering operations, JENSEN saw an opportunity to elevate the experience of what often becomes a cold, industrial setting. The highly technical, 24-hour facility brings together the company’s executive chef, production, procurement, test kitchen and catering services into an existing, single-story building. The renovated building adds natural light, outdoor views, and interior windows that visually connect previously separated department teams. In back, an open-air addition houses a pioneering bio-plastic production system that diverts the facility’s food waste stream.

Plug and Play

For this constantly evolving company, flexibility and food safety were paramount considerations in designing the commercial production kitchen. The two sides of the kitchen – one hot and one cold – both are open plan and adaptable as food culture and menu preferences change. In the hot kitchen, industrial components plug into a utility spine holding electrical and ventilation systems, speeding changes and updates. Blue flooring in the cold room and pink skylight wells in the hot kitchen counter the stainless steel and cold hues common in food-safe environments.

Kitchen Counterpoint

Featuring refined wood and glass details and a custom stainless island, the test kitchen and tasting room are the only outward facing elements of the facility. Here, the space supports the chef and catering team’s work with meeting and event organizers. Together they plan hundreds of menus each week, for everything from team lunches to major product launches. Here, too, flexibility is key: Metal fabric curtains quickly transform the space, concealing the video conferencing monitor or defining a more intimate setting. The conference table is adjustable for seated or standing experiences.

Climate Minded

As part of the company’s commitment to innovation, the commissary has partnered with a bio-plastics manufacturer to process the facility’s food waste stream. The system of tanks, augers, and cisterns breaks down food waste into compost and byproducts used for the bioplastics manufacturing process. Climate change factors in other design considerations: the facility is equipped with FEMA compliant flood proofing.