Festival Magic! CKS kitchens cook for stars and crew

Summer festivals are big business. From Easter Weekend and throughout the summer months there are upwards of a hundred major festivals to choose from covering all genres and age groups. One thing all festival-goers have in common is that they need feeding.

There are plenty of mobile burger bars, hog roasts etc for the general punters but the VIPs and performers who are used to a more glitzy life-style demand a bit more in the way of nourishment – some even bring along their own chefs. However these chefs need a top-class kitchen in which to perform their culinary magic.

Container Kitchen Systems, a specialist in mobile kitchen units, has had plenty of experience in supplying high spec kitchens for festivals and sporting events and is familiar with the demands of 'on location' chefs. In previous years it has supplied temporary kitchens for rock stars at Glastonbury, tennis stars at Wimbledon and flying aces at the Farnborough Air Show.

CKS can discuss the specialist requirements of festival chefs (and their discerning employers) with event management before delivering the kitchen, so that everything arrives exactly as requested. The typical festival kitchen will be fitted out with the very latest kitchen technology - from combi steamers to high-performance air conditioning.

"We can supply a kitchen to feed anything from 30 to 3,000 or even more," says Mark Kingston. "And if necessary, for remote locations, we can bring our own power and water."

The standard small 3.8m CKS kitchen includes a serving hatch and sufficient space for two chefs to work comfortably. Capable of producing up to 200 meals per session, the kitchen includes a six-burner gas oven range, Salamander gas grill, double-basket gas fryer, extraction canopy, upright fridge, stainless steel table, hot cupboard, double bowl sink unit, fly killer and lots of other accessories.

For festival organisers who might be uncertain of what is needed, CKS has a live online assistance facility available on every page of its website (www.cksltd.co.uk). This makes it easy for visitors to click for instant help and open up a live chat window as soon as they have a query or want to place an order.

"We aim to make the whole operation easy and trouble-free," says Mark Kingston of CKS. "We'll make sure everything is working before we go off-site, and are on-call for any problems. We can also usually get the kitchen up and running within 24 hours of receiving the order.”