Original Article written by the Burkett Blog and linked below
In August 2021, Burkett Restaurant Equipment & Supplies was awarded the Amazon Air project located in Hebron Kentucky, where three full kitchens, a grab-n-go kitchen, and four serving areas have recently been installed.
While the rest of the airport was completed and opened for operations in August 2021, the kitchens and serving areas are scheduled to open in early August 2022. The kitchen staff and operations will be managed by AVI Foodsystems, a leader in the hospitality provider industry with Jeff Day, AVI’s General Manager leading the team.
What is Amazon Air?
Amazon Air, not to be confused with Amazon Prime Air (drone delivery service), has a new, state-of-the-art principal sorting facility located in Hebron Kentucky. The 800,000 square-foot Amazon Air Hub is located at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on 600 acres of land. The facility operates dozens of flights per day and processes millions of packages every week to quickly connect Amazon customers across the country. The facility will employ over 2,000 individuals and will feature 100 daily flights at full capacity. View the facilities progress video here!
“The primary function of Amazon Air is to transport Amazon packages from distant fulfillment centers that are outside of Amazon’s local ground linehaul network for a specific area. Once the buyer’s order is flown from the distant fulfillment center to the buyer’s region, it is either transported to the regional Amazon Sortation Center for last-mile delivery either by Amazon Logistics or the United States Postal Service, or directly to the local Amazon Delivery Station for last-mile delivery by Amazon Logistics”
Partnerships in the Project
A major partner in the project was our friends at Zink Foodservice. Zink Foodservice is a manufacturer’s representative for foodservice equipment. They work closely with dealers (like Burkett), consultants, and operators to provide custom solutions for premier equipment, tabletop, and smallwares manufacturers.
“With a lot of moving parts and a job of this size I worked closely with the Burkett team to ensure what the customer wanted is exactly what they received. I worked hand-in-hand with the estimating and project management team at Burkett to ensure all equipment on the project matched both the specifications and the drawings while working closely with our manufacturers to ensure they had all of the information they needed to complete the project.”
– Travis Lusky, Zink Foodservice, Territory Manager
What’s Inside the 4 Kitchens?
Inside the sorting facility are two kitchens and serving areas; Prime One and Prime Two. The two kitchens are expected to provide foodservice for 2,400 employees. When you first enter the serving areas of both locations, you’ll see timeless pieces of Delfield equipment that include point of sale counters and a self-serving area that includes soup bars, salad bars, and beverage counters.
The serving areas inside both kitchens include hot entre counters, Federal Industries Refrigerated Deli Display Cases for pre-made sandwiches, grill and fry pick up stations, grill and fry stations, Lincoln pizza conveyor ovens and refrigerated/heated roll-in boxes for storing prepped foods.
Prime One
Beyond the double doors of the Prime One Kitchen is an impressively large kitchen where a variety of offerings from soup & salad to pizza, burgers & fresh daily entree selections will be prepared for the Amazon employees. Cooking Equipment includes Fry Master deep fryers, Garland cooking battery that includes heavy duty ranges with a char broiler and griddle. There’s a Cleveland Tilt Kettle & Tile Skillet, and Convotherm Combi-Oven (8 featured throughout the entire project).
Prime Two
The second kitchen, Prime Two, also sits inside the sorting facility with a mirrored floorplan and slightly less cooking equipment. The intention of the Prime Two kitchen is to serve a fresh and healthier fare, including a made to order fusion station, with the bulk of any needed cooked food being transported from the Prime One Kitchen.
Air Ramp Facility: GSE Cafe
The third kitchen sits inside the Amazon Air Ramp Facility and is expected to provide foodservice for 500 employees. This kitchen, including the servery, warewashing and storing sections are a close replica of the Prime 1 Kitchen inside the sorting facility mentioned earlier, only slightly smaller.
Pilot’s Lounge Cafe, A Grab-N-Go Kitchen
The fourth kitchen is considered a grab-n-go style kitchen that is mainly serving the airport’s pilots. The Pilots Lounge Café plans to serve a daily entree selection & Boar’s Head Deli menu. The featured equipment includes Delfield custom hot/cold food serving counter with point of sale, Federal Industries Refrigerated Deli Display Cases for pre-made sandwiches, and a beverage counter.
