Kitchen nightmares: detecting air pollution from commercial ovens
With gas burners firing all day and limited ventilation, chefs and food prep staff are exposed to a harmful mix of indoor pollutants. But as Martin Guttridge-Hewitt learns, times are changing.
This summer while most of the British media indulged in a snap election feeding frenzy another culinary event got underway. Specifically, the UK launch of the Global CookSafe Coalition (GCC) at the world’s first zero waste certified restaurant, London’s Silo.
Having created the blueprint for kitchens without waste in 2014, when his Hackney eatery opened, Head Chef and Owner Douglas McMaster is now thinking about different environmental challenges facing the sector: energy and emissions. More so, he’s among a growing number of hospitality professionals who recognise this is about climate responsibilities and fuel use, but also staff health.
Founded in Australia in 2022, the GCC is an alliance whose members in OECD countries have committed to delivering universal access to safe and sustainable cooking in new kitchens by 2030, and existing kitchens by 2040. Worldwide targets gave a longer tail, at 2035 for new kitchens and 2045 for the remainder. To achieve this a number of measures will be necessary, including degassing appliances and switching to induction cooking.
‘The Coalition has members and partners. Members are civic society organisations, technical teams, academics, the people who are thinking about policy and conducting research. And those charged with implementing legislation,’ explains Tushar Nair, UK/EU Campaign Manager at the Global CookSafe Coalition. ‘Then we have partners, which are property companies, primarily, but we are looking at expanding that scope a little bit to also include retailers and manufacturers, possibly restaurant associations and owners. The private sector that operates the infrastructure.
‘That’s a conscious decision we’ve taken, we’re very mindful about not becoming a platform for greenwashing, so we want to know people involved with us are able to implement real changes, step up, do the work, not just take credit for it,’ he continues. ‘We also have a third category, which began last year with local governments in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, who reached out to us to help with some really ambitious decarbonisation targets and the phase-out of gas. Since then, the Victoria state government has also joined, and we are hoping to welcome the City of Westminster Council soon, too.’
Professional chefs make up the fourth arm of the organisation, ranging from Michelin-starred celebrities through to new starters and ‘mom and pop’ operations. These ‘super stars’, as Nair calls them, perform two crucial roles – legitimising alternatives to gas cooking, namely high-tech induction hobs, and depoliticising the debate around fossil fuels in the kitchen. ‘They’re the people who get to say: “look – we are just here to talk about whether or not you can cook the food you know and love effectively and efficiently, maybe even better, by making the switch.” They’re neutral professionals.
‘The broader issue we are concerned with is decarbonisation, buildings are the biggest emitters in the world, so we want to play our role in that. But a big part of the messaging has been around health benefits,’ says Nair. ‘If you go back to our initial launch in Australia, we have a medical doctor there talking about public health aspects of moving away from gas. So, this has been part of what we do from the beginning.’
Nevertheless, the vast majority of GCC partners join because they also want to bring greenhouse gas output down. By comparison, few are here to prioritise indoor air quality within commercial kitchens, and even less will be aware of the immediate dangers to staff that come from having multiple burners blazing on full-heat for the duration of an afternoon lunch or evening dinner service. This is something the organisation is hoping to change with its campaign work.
‘Just by having gas ignited for, say, 12 hours a day, multiple hobs, there’s also the heat itself negatively impacting physical and mental health. Burns and injuries are more common. Then there’s the air pollution side of things,’ Nair says. ‘The topline problem is the increased asthma risk from working around gas… But you’re burning fossil fuels in an enclosed space, that’s the real issue. We all hope to achieve 100% efficiency from that burning process, but it is never 100%, or even close.
‘So there are all these emissions blowing around the kitchen, and oven hoods to extract gas aren’t always designed to precise specifications,’ he continues. ‘So, we know there are very high nitrogen oxides just because there’s oxidised air and a flame. You can’t control that. And there are also continuous benzene emissions – most [gas cooker] manufacturers would not readily agree, but a small amount of leakage is inevitable. Our own data suggests around 75% of emissions from a stove occur when it’s switched off.’
Investigations into indoor air quality in commercial kitchens are almost non-existent, but studies into what we breathe when cooking at home are alarming. According to Zehnder research, cooking an omelette, stir-fry, or grilled food can raise pollution levels to more than three times the average London roadside, including significant quantities of fine particular matter (PM2.5). A separate analysis by the American Chemical Society suggests a roast dinner produces more particulates than you’d find on Delhi’s streets.
The GCC is hoping to expand studies in the area, and Nair cites ‘a number of chefs’ who have offered to wear sensors while working to measure real-time levels of different gases. Early talks are also underway with PSE Health Energy in the US, a policy-informing health-science research company, in the hope of measuring the differences between the impact of gas and electric hobs on air quality.
‘What we’re doing with the Federal Government in Australia is finding a way to make sure that a lot of decarbonisation subsidies are being put together to cover retrofit kitchens. Already a couple of chefs have access to that fund and they’ve been able to subsidise their transition,’ Nair replies when we ask how the GCC helps commercial kitchens switch off gas. ‘If you’re going to be moving towards greener technology, the government needs to be stepping in to make that transition much easier.’
Examples of businesses that have made the move remain difficult to come by for now, then, but Grosvenor Property UK have already begun the process. One of Britain’s biggest property management companies, responsible for thousands of commercial addresses, while terms vary the company has responsibility for the renovation of around 300 commercial kitchens used by hospitality businesses and has committed to a 90% reduction in emissions by 2040. Degassing is a priority, and now all new fit-outs and retrofits are being delivered gas-free to meet targets.
‘A real caveat is whether we have access to the power supply. I think a lot of hurdles we’ve had when wanting to de-gas a full unit including the cooking is the power available,’ says Eve Bellers, Sustainability Manager at Grosvenor. ‘In some situations, we’d have to put in a new substation or ask for more power from the grid. That’s one of the biggest challenges we come up against, so where possible it’s been transitioning heating first, then looking at kitchens.’
The approach has worked in so far as removing the 55 largest gas boilers from the estate has seen company-wide consumption fall by 40%. But the switch to induction hobs is going to be a slower process, with opinion divided over the technology, and whether it can cook dishes to the same standard as gas.
‘We’ve seen across the board a range of responses. I think the small minority are those who completely bought into the idea and wanted to switch to electric, and those who, in contrast, wouldn’t even look at a gas free kitchen,’ says Bellers. ‘So, I don’t think we are there yet, within the market. But there’s another group who are coming to it and have never used gas-free cooking before, and this is their first step into it.
‘I think there is an ingrained reservation, a belief that gas gives better flavour, is more controllable. But we’ve noticed from those that have taken an all-electric unit, there are no examples that wanted to go back to gas,’ she continues. ‘A good example is a pub chain in one of our properties, this is their only gas free kitchen in the chain, and they think it’s faster, safer, more comfortable – all these benefits. But then we have had some who walked away from a unit because they realised it was gas free.’
The fact Grosvenor’s de-gassing policy isn’t going to change, despite a minority of potential clients pushing back, betrays the company’s confidence in the quality of its all-electric kitchens, and the need to transition. Like other GCC members, it has arrived at this decision from an emissions and energy standpoint. But in doing so, a co-benefit has been realised in reducing staff exposure to harmful gases and particulate matter, and this is rapidly rising up the agenda.
‘We know the big problems with gas are longer cooking times, increased temperatures in working environments, and basically being less comfortable places to cook. But we’re also aware of air pollution as a problem, and, in particular, particulate matter, which has now fed into our development approach,’ says Bellers. ‘We have created a sustainable development brief, which we give to tenants, and it has various layers to consider. One is now a ventilation strategy and indoor air quality plan. This lists out the pollutants than people should be aware of when designing a kitchen.’
For now, though, Grosvenor remains in the minority, both in terms of switching from gas in commercial kitchens and understanding the air quality argument for that move. But Nair and the GCC insist times are changing, and more professionals are waking up to the hidden risk of working in inadequately ventilated gas-filled spaces. Tipping this to a majority is still a way off and overcoming the research gap will be vital, but as evidence starts to mount it seems more organisations will inevitably make the switch to create a healthier, happier, and more efficient workplace.
This article originally appeared in the September issue of Air Quality News magazine
