A grocery store is a brisk and lucrative type of business. Including any daily need from food and groceries to cleaning materials and kitchen utensils, grocery stores are of great importance for all, so it will never be a loss-making business venture. The most significant step you need to take is to purchase grocery store equipment before running your operation.
To make the buying process for a grocery store easier, you’ll need several pieces of grocery store equipment for stocking, selling, and preserving food, in addition to frontside equipment. You can decide to buy, hire, or prefer used grocery store equipment considering your budget. We prepared the main list of grocery store equipment for you to find anything you need to know.
1. Displaying Equipment
In a grocery store, the important point is to keep foods cold and fresh. There are several grocery store equipment made for it, and one of them is display cases which are perfect in this situation. They are not just keeping the food at safe temperatures but also enables customers to reach the products quickly and creates an organized area.
There are two types of display cases available for different parts of the grocery, such as the deli or bakery department. There are curved glass models as well as straight ones. Additionally, you can multiply the storage with display baskets and merchandising racks while adding little touches to the layout. You may choose whichever you think is best for your business.
- Forced Air Display Cases: They use fans that circulate cold air throughout the cabinet to keep the food cold. Forced air systems can dry the products that are not covered, so it is usually used for packaged and deli products.
- Gravity Coil Display Cases: Gravity coil systems have a refrigeration coil mounted to the top of the cabinet, producing cool air to keep the food cold and cool the rising warm air. They are generally used for meat, seafood, and other products you don’t want them to dry.
- Retail Display Baskets and Stands: You can use display baskets and stands to easily display packaged food, baguettes, or other products. You can place them anywhere you want, on a counter, in the corner, or at the center of a storefront, and you can utilize them for a range of duties.
- Merchandiser Racks: A merchandiser rack allows customers to easily see and find the products you stored near the cash register. They are available in various sizes and colors, so you will find the one that fits your needs and your grocery’s look.
2. Refrigeration Equipment
A grocery shop gets massive perishable food, requiring refrigeration equipment to store and preserve these products. The different types of supermarket refrigeration systems are listed below with features and usage areas.
- Walk-in Refrigeration Units: They are helpful grocery store equipment with a high capacity that lets you keep the huge amount of food at safe temperatures and store them organized so the customers can easily find what they are looking for. They come in various sizes, and the staff can refill the items from the back, which will not disturb customers and ease the staff’s work.
- Glass Door Merchandiser Cooler & Freezers: Glass door cooler is necessary for small impulses buy products such as water or soda. The freezer is an essential piece of grocery store equipment with a massive amount of frozen food.
- Open Air Cooler And Open Air Freezers: They can be found in different grocery store sections. Having no doors offers customers easily grab what they want and go. With air curtain-blowing cold air- it can keep everything cold inside. Open-air freezers are mainly used for frozen food like fish and meats and open-air coolers for drinks, salads, and dairies.
- Reach-In Coolers: Reach-in coolers can be required near the cooking or deli area as it can be dealing for staff to go to walk-ins every time. Reach-in coolers made specially to keep inside cold even when the doors are continually opened.
3. Grocery Store Shelving and Storage
In grocery stores, shelving and storage units are the most needed grocery store equipment for displaying and storing the products. You can enhance the store’s layout with the shelves and create an inviting environment. Different types of products require different shelves, and here are some of them.
- Retail Shelving: For easy access and regular displaying of the products, retail shelving has great importance. Retail shelving will provide you the storage space which is vital for a grocery store. Various shelf types such as wall, double-sided, bakery, and grocery units are suitable for different grocery store departments.
- Additional Storage Shelving: For backstock and extra space for storing and organizing, you need additional dry storage. Wire shelving, utility carts, palette storage, and dunnage racks will be highly required in all store sections.
- Additional Refrigeration Shelving: Additional storage will be needed in all refrigerated areas, but it is essential to consider damage on shelves the humidity can cause. To prevent this, you should use storage equipment explicitly made for refrigeration.
4. Deli Supplies
Delis are generally the busiest sections in a grocery store, and they require various grocery store equipment and supplies.
- Commercial Meat Slicers & Commercial Cheese Cutters: Lighter and heavier-duty slicers and cutters have different capacities. For a large operation such as a grocery deli, you will need heavy-duty commercial meat slicers and commercial cheese cutters designed to handle heavy use.
- Deli Display Case: A deli department requires -of course- a displaying cabinet. Display all the products while keeping them cold at the same time to attract customers.
- Sandwich Prep Unit: In most of the supermarkets, delis started selling sandwiches with their available meat. A grocery that wants to offer this to clients will need a sandwich prep unit with a cooler to keep the ingredients cold.
- Commercial Scales: A price-calculating scale is a must-have grocery store equipment that will efficiently weigh deli products.
5. Prepared Foods Department Supplies
Some grocery stores have prepared food shop departments offering ready-to-go food to customers. There are some prep, cooking, and warming grocery store equipment used in prepared food shops.
- Salad Bar: It is one of the grocery store equipment that found in the prepared food section. Refrigerated wells are mainly required to keep vegetables and other salad ingredients fresh.
- Commercial Ovens: A commercial oven is one of the most needed grocery store equipment because of a prepared food shop’s various food items. A commercial rotisserie oven is perfect for roasting chicken, and you can use a commercial combi oven either as a convection oven or a steamer.
- Commercial Deep fryer: Commercial deep fryers will be required for all fried food items such as French fries, nuggets, fried chicken, etc. If you want to buy deep fryers for your grocery store, you should add an exhaust fan and grease hoods to the list.
- Commercial Beverage Dispensers: In addition to various food items, a drink menu in a grocery store’s prepared food section is also necessary. You can offer a variety of beverages to customers near their food, from coffee to frozen drinks or smoothies, with hot and cold commercial beverage dispensers. They are designed to ease your work with huge sizes that goes for a long time before refill.
- Countertop Display Warmers: To keep the food at proper temperatures and display simultaneously, a countertop display warmer is a must in a prepared foods shop. Plus, countertop display warmers will allow customers to choose the food they want.
- Commercial Sinks: Hygiene comes first all the time, especially for a food prep area. Dish, hand, and prep sinks are what you need in the deli department and prepared food shop.
- Commercial Dishwashers: There will naturally be dishes that need to be washed up where you cook and prepare food. Regarding time and speed, you may consider purchasing a commercial dishwashing machine instead of manual washing, which will be the right decision for busy times.
6. Other Grocery Store Equipment
- Shopping Carts And Baskets: Ensure your customers have an enjoyable shopping experience in your grocery store, paving the way for them with various shopping carts, baskets, and bags. Durable and easily usable carts and baskets allow customers to pick what they need and go on quickly.
- Food & Product Packaging: An essential item is a package in the deli, prepared foods shop, bakery departments, and cash register sections. You will need various packages to serve all the baked and prepared food or the packaged items.
- Cashier Supplies: To efficiently and quickly go through the process, you will need a cash register, calculator-there are computer systems all over the supermarkets, so maybe not needed- coin counters, and of course a cash register table to store all these.
- Disposables And Cleaning Materials: To serve food properly, you need disposables like food trays, cups, containers, and to create a hygienic environment using disposable gloves, hairnets, sanitizing chemicals, and safety shields due to epidemics are essential.
To sum up
As a grocery shop entrepreneur, you need to meet the requirements of running a successful grocery store like fast service, appropriate storage capacity, diversity of choices, high-quality product, attractive and neat design. The proper grocery store equipment will provide all these requirements, but with the necessary tools and furnishing. To know how to start the business and use which grocery store equipment should be on the top of your list. Using reliable grocery store equipment will help you generate your business and offer a convenient experience to customers.
