The Real Thoughts from a Manufacturer of Commercial Induction Cooktops

I have produced commercial induction cooktops for 20 years. As a factory, I am professional and efficient in commercial induction cooking equipment. I still have many concerns when faced with the rising prices of stainless steel, fittings, and labor. My peers save costs by adding cheap materials, and accessories to commercial induction cooktops, which they have been doing.

I have been shaken by this idea. I am also considering whether this action is feasible. But in the end, I turned it down. This action has no long-term benefits. Many customers buy commercial induction stoves from my factory because they value high-quality and reliable technical services. These factors are the reasons why my factory can gain a foothold in this field.

In the global recession, my factory is climbing a difficult and dangerous mountain, which is a mountain built by cost, technology, and innovation. Many colleagues give up climbing one-third, one-half, or three-quarters of the way. I understand that, in this war, we are all losers.

In China, I have independently developed, designed, and produced commercial induction cookers for 20 years. It is my most dazzling achievement to become the standard maker of China’s commercial induction cooker industry and the preferred supplier of kitchen engineering projects. But these achievements are negligible internationally. I am unfamiliar with many restaurants, and it is difficult for them to verify my claims.

For many restaurateurs, Lestov is an unfamiliar brand of commercial cooking equipment. What can Lestov offer them? What are the benefits? Are Lestov stoves reliable in quality? It is a difficult question to verify. Allow me to give you the answer from my own experience.

Lestov is committed to providing restaurants with high-efficiency, saving, and fume-free commercial kitchens

In my childhood, my father ran a family restaurant which was started by my grandfather. It is a traditional Chinese Cantonese restaurant. Among the eight major cuisines in China, Cantonese cuisine can best test the cooking skills of chefs. It requires the chef to know and apply almost all cooking modes, including cooking, stir-frying, stewing, boiling, and frying.

Whenever I was out of school, I always had to help my dad with chores in restaurants. Sometimes I would be a waiter, cook, or even a cashier. Of these roles, I hate the role of a chef the most. I have to follow my father to learn how to cook, and I also have to endure the high temperature of over 40°C in the kitchen. After holding the 2KG wok cooker continuously and flipping it over and over, I used to hide in my room and cry because of the soreness of my arm.

But these hardships did not bring enough profits to our family’s restaurant. It is a labor of physical strength in exchange for a meager salary. My father often fretted over monthly gas bills, ventilation, and the departure of the chef. However, this is not the worst. When a public official handed me a proclamation banning the use of gas appliances in public places, I knew it was time for a change.

I did not choose to inherit this family restaurant than to develop a more efficient and safe commercial induction cooker. It is a technology that relies on a magnetic field to conduct heat. It does not produce an open flame, but the heat energy will accumulate at the bottom of the pot. In 1957, German scientists applied electromagnetic heating technology to stoves, which ushered in an era of energy saving.

In the beginning, my father did not support my business. He thought that commercial induction cookers would only become losers in China, where fire and gas stoves are popular. I’m not denying my father’s point, because commercial gas stoves are still prevalent in restaurants today. In my point of view, any cooking equipment is designed for cooking food, the only difference is whether it is efficient, safe, and energy-saving. I will use the following video to verify my point.

Lestov is committed to providing cooks with easy-to-operate, smart-control, and energy-saving stoves

I have interviewed many professional chefs, junior chefs, and kitchen workers with a question: What is the most difficult problem for you to solve in cooking? I got an answer that I found incredible. Junior chef Michael told me that until now, he was not sure if he would be able to prepare the next dish. There are too many factors that will interfere with the final product, such as whether he can control the fire of the stove. It is uncertain. Whenever I want to go out, I worry about whether the food on the stove will burn, even if it is only 1 minute. This feeling is frightening.

Michael said frankly: I hope there is a stove that can set the heating power, time, and even temperature in advance. It would help me a lot if it would follow the steps I set up. If you look at commercial cooking equipment shopping sites, you will find that more and more products are using touchscreen controls, which I think is a great development.

Lestov works on an innovative wok for canteens to automatically cook large batches of food

Compared to my father, I am lazy and I don’t want to waste too much time and chefs cooking food and creating new dishes; it will cost a lot. On the other hand, many diners rely on Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and JustEat (takeaway platform) to order food. It is a game of speed, and the time left for cooking + delivery is limited to less than 40 minutes.

Most restaurants will go to the food company to buy pre-made dishes, which only need to be heated in the microwave for 1 minute. To prolong the shelf life of pre-made dishes, a lot of salt is added, which is the place where diners complain the most. Louis, a restaurateur, told me: He knows that using prepared dishes is not a sustainable practice, but no chef dares to take into account the relationship between cooking speed and food flavor.

I told this problem, my R&D team, they are professionals in equipment cooking equipment, and there are 30+ people, so they may be able to gather many unexpected ideas. After three months, they offered me a plan to automate cooking equipment. It is a device that automatically cooks, seasons, pours ingredients and cleans, and stir-fries dishes ranging from 1.5KG to 20KG within 30 minutes.

I applaud the R&D team for their ideas, but I disagree with their proposal. Automated cooking solves the problem of slow cooking speed and slow meal delivery, but it does not solve the problem of consistent and delicious food taste. For restaurateurs, this is not a worthwhile investment in cooking equipment.

After another three months, they presented me with a proven proposal. They added 800 to unlimited programmable recipes to the automatic stir-frying machine, which means you can copy recipes from Google, Facebook and enter them into the machine; it will follow the cooking steps. The biggest benefit of this is that it achieves weekly and daily creative dishes and consistency of food taste.

Lestov is committed to providing one-stop commercial cooking equipment solutions for kitchen engineering project

I used to go to the market with my father to buy cooking equipment, and I found that many shops and factories could not meet all our needs. If I need to build / Update / Renovate a kitchen, I need to find a kitchen contractor. If I need to buy cooking equipment, I need to go to a store or a commercial stove factory. It would waste a lot of my time, and it is difficult to guarantee the quality of each project.

When I first started the Lestov commercial induction cooktop factory, I added a full range of cooking equipment production lines and a kitchen engineering department. My dad was skeptical, thinking it was a risky investment, and worried that I couldn’t afford to lose it. He suggested that I only make commercial induction cooktops and buy the rest from other manufacturers. I rejected his suggestion.

In these 20 years, I have led the kitchen engineering department to the front line of restaurant construction. From the design of commercial kitchens and the production of cooking equipment to real-time technical services, we have demonstrated professional capabilities. Until now, we have helped New Oriental Cooking School, Panda Express, Jordan Sports, and Kungfu Restaurant complete commercial kitchen projects. I think this has validated that my investment is correct.

Now, my factory has achieved independent research and development and production of a full range of restaurant equipment, including 30 types of fryers, stoves, wok cookers, soup boilers, automatic cooking machines, and ovens.

My team is developing cooking equipment that is more suitable for commercial kitchens, to help restaurateurs save energy and labor costs while improving cooking efficiency. I believe this is an inevitable trend, and even more R&D dollars will be solid investments. If you need commercial cooking equipment, please feel free to contact us for the best solution.