While there are many different types of commercial kitchen scales, from receiving scales to bakery scales, portion control scales, as the name indicates, are designed to measure and portion out ingredients and to ensure that you are dispensing equal portions each time. Utilizing a portion control scale is one of the easiest and most effective means of controlling food costs in foodservice. Additionally, portion control scales are important to create consistency in recipes so that regardless of which member of your cooking staff is preparing a recipe, all ingredients are accurate and consistently measured and the recipe is adhered to so the final result is the same each time.
If you’re shopping for a portion control scale, one of the first choices you’ll make will be whether to shop for a digital portion control scale or a mechanical portion control scale.
Digital portion control scales are ideal for restaurants, pizza shops, cafes, bakeries or other commercial foodservice outlets to that require consistent, high volume use. Electronic portion control scales are designed for accuracy and speed and the easy-to-read digital displays make it simple to get consistent readings from person to person without much effort. Additionally, many digital scales allow for the user to change the measuring units from imperial to metric or to provide dual readings. You can also find many digital portion control scales that have a tare feature, where you can remove the weight of the container from your measurement, to provide the net weight. When shopping commercial electronic portion control scales, you may want to consider the following features: display, waterproof or washable, battery vs. plug in, tare functionality, NSF certified, ability to print or connect to a printer.
Mechanical portion control scales are very common in institutional and commercial kitchens in part because they are often lower in price than their digital counterparts. An additional benefit to a mechanical scale is that it can be easily moved within a kitchen or facility as it does not require any power source. Mechanical portion control scales are designed for portability and versatility. They are very reliable and do not require batteries or power to operate. You can purchase commercial mechanical portion control scales in whichever unit of measure needed; imperial, metric or dual reading. As with digital scales, there are also some mechanical kitchen portion scales with a tare function. When shopping for a mechanical scale, features to be considered include water resistant or dishwasher safe, rotating dial, platform shock absorber, tare feature and NSF certification.
At Cook’s, you’ll find commercial foodservice scales from top brands including Edlund, Taylor and Escali and we can assist you in finding the best digital or mechanical portion control scale for your foodservice operation.
