The Burns & Ferrall Great Container Kitchen started life as a roll of steel in a container manufacturing company in Shanghai, China. It was one of 100 twenty-foot high cube containers purchased by CSL Containers.
When Burns & Ferrall first approached Roger McCallum, the managing director of CSL Containers, to discuss the project, McCallum was keen from the get-go. The team had done plenty of container kitchens in their time, but none to this level of sophistication. “We’ve built cafes and bars too and we also own a variety of mobile retail units for lease that can be outfitted as kitchens, cafes, bars and retail pop up stores,” McCallum said. “The Burns & Ferrall kitchen is right up there, because we don’t think anything this sophisticated has been built out of a container in New Zealand before. We’re always excited to turn our customers’ dreams into reality.”
McCallum and the CSL team are no stranger to ground-breaking projects. They built the Momentum Hub within the Vector Wero Whitewater Park in Manukau City, their biggest container village build to date and a mix of retail, office and leisure space. McCallum is noticing a rise in repurposed containers, and not just in foodservice. “There are more enquiries for mobile retail spaces because of an increased awareness that these products are now available.”
Shipping container modifications, as opposed to traditional kitchen fit-outs, has advantages for the builders, the customer and the public. “As the container modifier, we can manage all factors of the build in a controlled and dry environment and ensure health and safety on our site during the build,” he explained. “For the customer it is an extremely robust unit for mobile use, and for the public there is very little impact or disruption normally associated with building sites.”
Collaborating on the project with Burns & Ferrall was easy, McCallum said, and CSL worked with Sammy Karlin of Burns & Ferrall to project-manage the build and provide advice on fitting all the Burns &Ferrall kitchen products into a container space.
“There was no pressure from Burns & Ferrall,” McCallum said. “The build posed some curly questions that we relished in finding solutions for, but overall, we worked with them in a collaborative environment and achieved a great product that some lucky Burns & Ferrall client is going to get for free.”
Although he won’t be entering, McCallum knows exactly what he would do if he were lucky enough to win the Great Container Kitchen.
“I’d put it at the top of my street at Christmas, hook it up to one of our generators and entertain my neighbours as a Christmas treat!”
Burns & Ferrall is offering the chance for one lucky company to walk away with a fully equipped, fully functional commercial kitchen housed inside a custom-built recycled container, worth over $125,000. Simply spend $1000 at Burns & Ferrall to go into the draw.
