Commercial electric oven: why it's the best solution for your kitchen

In what aspects are commercial electric ovens better, and what are the areas where gas ovens excel? Let's start with a simple premise. There are different types of commercial ovens, and modern technologies allow electric and gas solutions to achieve comparable cooking performances. The main differences to base your choices on involve installation, kitchen safety, and energy consumption.

Let's take a closer look.

In most cases, installing an electric oven simply requires having sufficient electrical power (kW) available in your kitchen, making installation quick and easy. There is no need for additional investments in equipment such as expensive extraction hoods or ventilation openings to remove combustion byproducts.

What's more, a professional electric oven, even a high-powered one, rarely requires modifications to the kitchen's existing infrastructure to comply with safety regulations, unlike gas ovens, which often do.

Even after installation, a professional electric oven offers several advantages over a gas oven.

For example, during peak operating hours, the gas supply must power burners, boilers, grills, and ovens. Under these conditions, pressure drops may occur, potentially causing equipment malfunctions or triggering safety shutdowns.

On the other hand, once the electrical infrastructure is properly set up, there is no need for further concerns.

And even if the full electrical power required by the equipment is not available, UNOX electric ovens can be easily integrated into an automatic power optimization system. These systems allow the equipment to operate smoothly without requiring user intervention, while still ensuring the expected cooking results.

Commercial electric ovens are significantly more efficient at transferring thermal energy within the oven compared to their gas counterparts. This advantage stems from electricity's ability to convert with an efficiency close to 100% into heat, eliminating energy losses. In gas ovens, heat generation results from a chemical reaction, combustion, which produces hot fumes that are expelled from the oven, causing energy losses and direct CO2 emissions.

In terms of costs, these can vary significantly depending on the region and local energy policies. However, choosing a commercial electric oven over a gas one guarantees a reduction in environmental impact today and in the future.

Let’s make a simple comparison: using a gas oven instead of an electric one is like driving a combustion engine car instead of an electric car.

Every time you drive a combustion engine car, you emit CO2 into the atmosphere, while using an electric car, this doesn’t happen. Clearly, to power your electric car, you will need to use energy, which could be produced from renewable sources or using fossil fuels.

Whether the energy you purchase from the grid is predominantly from renewable sources like solar or wind, or primarily from fossil fuels, the electric oven is always the more sustainable choice.

In 2021, globally, 62% of electricity production came from fossil fuels, while in 2030, it is expected that this percentage will drop to 41% as renewable energy production increases.

This is why, if you purchase an electric oven today, its environmental impact will decrease over time, while a gas oven will continue to emit emissions into the atmosphere every time you use it.

Moreover, choosing to purchase only electric energy from renewable sources from your supplier can immediately eliminate the environmental impact of your electric oven!

Cooking food is an energy-intensive process. That’s why choosing efficient and sustainable solutions has increasingly become a necessity rather than an option for foodservice professionals.

ENERGY STAR® is a government-backed program designed to encourage manufacturers across a wide range of technologies to prioritize energy efficiency during product development. ENERGY STAR® standards provide the methodologies and set of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that our Research and Development teams use every day to measure our progress in reducing the environmental impact of our products. This involves improving insulation, motor efficiency, and automatic energy-saving technologies.

The result?

Today, we are the leader in the number of ENERGY STAR® certified commercial ovens.

Before exploring which of our ENERGY STAR® industrial electric ovens might be the right choice for you, let’s take a closer look at how choosing an electric combi oven could help you save energy, not only compared to a gas oven but also to other types of professional kitchen equipment.

Why have multiple commercial appliances when you can have an electric oven that can not only replicate their use but do so while saving you energy and space?

Many believe that using pots, steamers, fryers, grills, and other commercial equipment helps save money. But that’s not the case. Cooking with a commercial electric oven reduces heat loss and allows you to waste less energy during cooking processes.

Comparing the performance of an Unox ENERGY STAR® certified electric combi oven with other ENERGY STAR® certified equipment clearly shows that the oven is the most efficient technology.

Electric combi ovens are multifunctional appliances where you can perform roasting as well as steaming, grilling, sous-vide cooking, drying, gratin, browning, high and low-temperature roasts, braising, frying, reheating, not to mention the world of pastry and baking.

With a single multifunctional tool, you can replace multiple (and costly) appliances and expand your menu without sacrificing savings.

This is an aspect not to be underestimated when thinking about your kitchen or laboratory, as it can help not only reduce costs but also save in terms of space.

Optimal kitchen space management can make a difference. Your brigade members can move more freely. The spaces previously occupied can be allocated to other service phases or to the inclusion of other useful commercial equipment and ovens that allow increasing the number of meals served per day. This way, even smaller kitchens can increase their capacity and profits.

All of this in the context of a kitchen that effectively becomes safer, more functional, and ergonomic. What does that mean?

Firstly, the risk of injury is reduced. In a lab or kitchen where space is managed correctly, the risk of collisions, slips, and burns decreases. Additionally, optimized spaces thanks to greater functionality and ergonomics help improve operator productivity and comfort.

When it comes to saving both space and energy, we have already established that an ENERGY STAR® certified electric oven is the ideal solution.

Now, let’s explore why the ovens in the CHEFTOP MIND.Maps™ range are the perfect choice for your kitchen. Our professional combi ovens can grill, air fry, roast, brown, smoke, steam, and much more. They adapt to any type of kitchen and are easy to use, even for less experienced staff, thanks to their extensive library of automatic cooking programs.

The symmetrical reversing fans in our professional electric convection ovens distribute air powerfully and evenly across every tray, ensuring faster and more efficient cooking. And with technologies such as DRY.Maxi™, you can quickly and effectively remove moisture from the cooking chamber, achieving consistently perfect textures, browning, and crispiness in every dish.

But there’s more. With our new X lines, we’ve taken the technology of our commercial electric ovens to another level with a next-generation operating system, Digital.ID™, and intelligent functions that allow the oven to receive voice commands and listen to operator feedback. Not satisfied with a cooking process? With Individual.CHEFUNOX, you can communicate your preferences to the oven, and it will remember your desired cooking parameters for a dish. In the future, every time you cook that dish, you’ll always get the result you desire!

The automation of these processes and the versatility of our commercial electric ovens can make a difference when it comes to reducing service times and, consequently, allowing chefs to expand their menu without worry.

What makes Unox commercial electric ovens the best for businesses like pastry shops and bakeries is not just the extraordinary cost savings but, as mentioned in the previous section, the quality of performance and the way our ovens are designed to meet the operator’s specific needs.

If, for example, you run a bakery or pastry shop, you might find the best electric oven for your commercial lab among the products in the BAKERTOP MIND.Maps™ line. A top priority in your case will be the need for guaranteed and repeatable cooking uniformity over time. Thanks to functionalities like CLIMALUX™, our electric ovens can ensure precise control of humidity levels in the cooking chamber, crucial for the quality of the final result. Many intelligent functions of our ovens will facilitate your work and help you achieve impeccable cooking results that are repeatable over time.

If you choose an oven from our X lines, you can also count on cutting-edge technologies capable of revolutionizing your lab with the use of artificial intelligence, for example. Our commercial combi oven for pastry shops and bakeries, BAKERTOP-X™, is equipped with an optical sensor that can recognize the food being baked and choose the most suitable cooking program for it.

And if you’re still worried about consuming too much, you can count on SMART.Energy. The intelligent function that monitors your electric oven's consumption and gives you useful suggestions to reduce energy waste.

With us, you can be sure of choosing the most suitable solution for you in complete safety. What does that mean? Choosing to buy a UNOX commercial electric oven will allow you to:

• test the oven for free for a day in your kitchen with Individual Cooking Experience;
• access an extendable warranty up to 5 years;
• enjoy the intelligent technologies and accessories of our ovens;
• access certified support services.

Click the button below to access a complete selection of our best commercial electric ovens. To help you make your choice, we have included sections reserved for specific fields of use.

Discover our electric ovens!