Dump Station / French Fries / Fryer

Dump Station

Dump station is also called Chip Dump and French Fries Station.  It is like the assistant of the fryer and is always located beside it.

As the names suggest, the primary function of a dump station is for deli workers to dump their fried chips, potato shoestring or basket-weave.   Salt is added at this stage and  packed into the cup with a French Fries shovel (chips scoop).   To efficiently assist deli workers, dump station has the following features:

Hot holding

First and foremost, the station needs to hold the French Fries at a high temperature.  Since it is not an enclosed piece of equipment, heat is constantly lost to the surroundings.   You can imagine an air conditioned room with all the windows and doors open.    It is hard to maintain the temperature.  Over the years, many different technologies including tubular heater, ceramic heater, infra-red heat lamp etc have been used to generate heat.

French fries is a indispensable item in the menu of a fast food restaurant.   While cooking it requires a good fryer, it is not easy to hold it for long.   Freshly fried chips is crispy but it rapidly becomes limp and soggy in time.   Some fast food restaurants states that French Fries taken out from fryer for more than 6 minutes cannot be served and have to be scrapped.   If the holding temperature is not sufficiently high, the holding time can get much shorter.   Seldom any fast food restaurants can adhere to this rule so it is not uncommon to find limp French Fries served.

Oil Removing and Distributing salt

Excess oil is on the French Fries after fried.   Deli-workers scoop them to enable excess oil to drip through the holes on the bottom of food bay.   Salt is added at this stage so scooping it a few more times guarantees that salt is evenly distributed.   The dumping pan is designed with a curved slope in the back with sufficient height to assist scooping.

The dump station can hold food other than French Fries, such as chicken nuggets, onion rings.   If different food are to be held at the same time, the accessory “product divider” is used to separate them.

Depending on the layout of your kitchen, the dump station may be on the left or right of your fryer.   It is necessary that the glass panel of the chip dump is fittable to the right or left so that the cut out is always oriented beside the fryer.

Other convenient features includes a rack for you to place the loaded French Fries cup, a sloping plane to allow chips falling off the rack to fall back into the food bay.   These small features are not essential but they make the job of deli worker much easier.  

Click here to check out the product collection of our dump station.