Chief Flat Panel Mounts Create Success for Culinary School

Challenge

The Culinary Program at Okanagan College was looking for a better way to demonstrate food handling, preparation and cooking techniques to students. Traditionally, this was accomplished by hanging a large angled mirror above the instructor’s table. The drawback of mirrors, however, is the inability to zoom in for demonstrations of particularly nuanced techniques. 

Solution

Points West Audio Visual in Kelowna, British Columbia, (and a Chief Certified Partner) has worked with Okanagan College for 20 years — installing interactive boards, projectors, Chief mounts and other solutions. Points West AV is a Chief Certified Partner. For the culinary room, they chose to install two 60” HD plasma displays using Chief’s Large Flat Panel Ceiling Mounts with adjustable columns and ceiling plates. HD camcorders hang from the ceiling and are aimed at the food preparation surface. The two flat screens allow students to see what the instructor is working on at the main prep table. The product reliability and durability of the mount was crucial due to the unique environment and working conditions.

The instructor also has the option to switch the display over to a laptop mounted to a nearby support beam using the Chief Kontour dual arm wall mount with optional laptop tray. This mount was very important to the instructors who needed to be able to access information quickly and easily in addition to providing a comfortable workstation that allows for greater productivity.

Rick Ponich, Sales and Customer Service at Points West Audio Visual, said the idea came from setting up similar cameras at a high school to show demonstrations in home economics class. “We brought this to the attention of the college,” Ponich said. “They said this would work really well for the culinary program.” 

Results

The project has been a success. James Maguire, AV Technician for Okanagan College, said they added an additional eight cameras and four large flat screen monitors in adjoining areas of the Culinary Arts building in August 2012. A series of cameras are now set up in the bakery, the cold preparation kitchen, the main soup kitchen and the front line area.

“The four additional plasma screens will be displaying a cyclical series of images from the camera in each of the prep areas to show the users of the main dining room and the cafeteria how their food orders are being prepared and cared for,” Maguire said.

Others have noticed the benefits of the installation as well. In February 2012, the classroom hosted the Canadian Culinary Championships for Gold Medal Plates, a national celebration of Canadian excellence in cuisine that helps support the Canadian Olympic Foundation.

“The competition organizers and participants thought the new facility offered a much improved opportunity and gave a higher standard of excellence for the general public to get to know more about their competition,” Maguire said. “The Gold Medal Plate organization is returning next year to again utilize these facilities along with some additional webcasting and network functionality the expanded media offers.”

Tracey Cochrane, Owner of Points West Audio Visual was quick to add, “Chief Mounts are the best on the market. The products are well designed, easy to install and very durable. We always recommend Chief highly and are very proud to represent their complete product line.”