How hot do you want it?

Nando’s is now showing how kitchen innovation can help boost sustainability efforts across multi-site businesses by using waste heat from its back-of-house operations to heat water and buildings after a successful pilot scheme.

Following a year-long trial of the new system. Nando’s will now be using this method at 14 other restaurants and then roll it out to even further.

Lancashire-based energy firm Dext Heat Recovery is behind the new kitchen system, which utilises a box on the roof of restaurants to collect heat generated from cooking, which is then filtered and recycled.

Sam McCarthy, Nando’s head of sustainability for the UK and Ireland, said the company is looking to help other restaurant operators learn more about the technology and integrate it into their own businesses.

I recently photographed the new Nando’s Ashford Outlet restaurant as designed by Fusion DNA. Positioned in the new food court outlet extension area, the Rooster of Barcelos neon logo can be seen far and wide. Outside is an amazing wicker canopy which shades some exterior seating. Inside the wicker canopy continues in the form of a skyline of pendant ceiling lights. Geometric patterns form the restaurant metal partitions and are echoed on the cork walls and servery tiling. There is a mixture of booths and tables that can be adjusted to suit the number of people in any group. With a dash of biophilia and a seasoning of Nando’s colour palette plus artwork, this restaurant certainly turns up the Peri-peri design heat.