Commercial kitchen extraction by sector
Kitchen Extraction Services for Dark Kitchens
What is different about extraction in dark kitchens?
Several food brands share one canopy and one duct run under a single roof, so no tenant owns the grease and nobody books the clean.
A dark kitchen is a commercial kitchen with no dining room. Several delivery brands cook in the same building, often on the same canopy and the same duct run, and that shared equipment is where the extraction work is different from a restaurant.
Shared ductwork, split responsibility
Ventilation suppliers describe the same problem in the same words: sharing an extraction system between several operators produces a compliance gap, uneven grease loading and a higher fire risk, because the equipment belongs to the building rather than to any of the brands using it. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 the duty is usually split between landlord and tenant by the lease, which is why the first question we ask on a multi tenant site is who holds it.
Planning, odour and the local authority
Councils commonly treat a dark kitchen as Sui Generis, a commercial kitchen and delivery centre, rather than as a restaurant. Extraction and odour then arrive as planning conditions with a named officer attached, and the filtration and discharge point have to answer them. A unit on the South Coast was closed after council action over odour and noise, so this is not a theoretical risk.
Who we talk to
On a managed site the buyer is the facility operator, not the food brand. Nobody cooking in one of those units can commission work on equipment they do not own, and asking them to is how a site ends up with nothing booked at all.
What tends to go wrong here
- Several food brands share one canopy and one duct run under a single roof, so no tenant owns the grease and nobody books the clean.
- Councils commonly classify a dark kitchen as Sui Generis, a commercial kitchen and delivery centre, which puts odour and extraction under planning conditions.
- The buyer is usually the facility operator or the landlord rather than the food brand, because no tenant owns the shared equipment.
Where to start
Common questions
Who pays for extraction cleaning in a shared dark kitchen?
On a managed multi tenant site it is normally the facility operator or the landlord, because no single food brand owns the shared canopy and ductwork. Where the duty actually sits is set by the lease, so we ask to see it before quoting.
Is a dark kitchen treated differently under planning?
Most councils classify one as Sui Generis, a commercial kitchen and delivery centre, which means odour and extraction are dealt with as planning conditions rather than assumed from a restaurant use class.