The kitchen prep table has been modernized. This standard prep table integrated with warming cabinets uses the Light Guide Systems tool on Sprout by HP to add an augmented reality element to the regular kitchen prep station.

Using infrared technology, the system can recognize a kitchen employee’s hand movements to measure depth. Once recipes are uploaded into the Smart Make Table, the equipment can immediately sense when a kitchen employee is deviating from the recipe.

Middleby representatives at the show demonstrated the Smart Make Table with pizza recipes. Once a representative tried to add pepperoni to a vegetarian pizza recipe, the system flashed red to warn of the human error.

Smart Make Table can be used as station to make pizza, hot dogs, sandwiches and tacos. The technology was released to the market earlier in May.

This flameless food warming system was released commercially at the end of 2018.

Marketed primarily toward restaurants with off-premise business, this new Sterno heating system generation is anchored by multi-use water-activated heat packets. The proprietary packets do not require fire to be activated and heat up in just a few seconds.

Representatives from Sterno announced the expansion of the line at the NRA show after an initial test, touting its safety features and efficiency (less time to heat up food means lower labor and training costs).

The product line expansion — which also includes refill packets — is available now.

Targeted primarily toward cafes and smoothie shops, the first commercial enclosed blender from KitchenAid is made for front-of-the-house use. While the blender itself is standard for the KitchenAid commercial line with multiple speed settings, it also has a variable timer that can start blending at a lower speed and then gradually speed up to ensure a more even texture.

But the primary feature touted by KitchenAid is that it is the brand’s quietest blender: The machine has a lift-up sound enclosure to reduce noise pollution for guests at a coffee or smoothie shop. During a demonstration, the lid significantly muffled but did not completely silence the loud motor.

The Enclosure Blender will be available to order in third quarter this year and will ship in the fourth quarter.

With the steady popularity of molecular gastronomy cooking techniques over the past decade, there has never really been an easy way of producing the caviar-like spheres made of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and more. Enter the aptly named Spherificator, which was first released three years ago but relaunched in March after it was bought by Cedarlane.

At their NRA Show debut, the Cedarlane team touted improved machinery and slick new packaging.

Cedarlane representatives demonstrated the science experiment-like chemical reaction that can turn any liquid (during the demonstration it was Gatorade) into caviar-like pearls.

From the Spherificator kit, you blend a packet of sodium alginate into your liquid of choice and then drop the machine into a mixture of water and sodium chloride. Almost instantly, the machine spits out pop-in-your-mouth liquid spheres with no residual taste, color or odor from the chemical process.

The Spherificator is available now.

Dubbing themselves the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine of the tea world, TeaBOT is a customizable automated tea kiosk that creates personal tea blends for users.

When we tried the machine during a demonstration, we were able to choose up to three flavors, the levels of each flavor, strength of the brew and temperature of the cup of tea. TeaBOT can create several hundred combinations, with blends like Jas-Mint and Lavend-Earl-Gray.   

While the TeaBOT launched four years ago, the tabletop edition came out in 2018 and the brand made its debut at the NRA Show this year. The technology is aimed at offices and quick-service restaurants.

Designed for bakers and pastry shop owners who want to keep training costs down, the Bake Suite lets chefs pre-load recipes into the software. The software is then attached to a dry ingredients scale, which gives step-by step instructions and can easily tell when users have added too much or too little of a specific ingredient.

Employees don’t need to be trained on a recipe. They would just have to follow along with directions on a screen. They can also easily adjust batch recipes on the fly if, for instance, the kitchen is running low on baking powder.

Currently the system is only connected to a scale, but in future versions the Bake Suite software will be able to communicate to other pieces of equipment in the kitchen.

The Bake Suite will be released by end of this year.

Latte art was only the beginning. Ripples debuted the latest version of their latte art printing machine at the NRA Show this year. It allows users to print images and messages onto beer and cocktail foam.

The tabletop device runs on Wi-Fi and allows bartenders and restaurant owners to choose from a pre-set catalog of images or upload their own personalized images and messages using a touchscreen system. Restaurant brands like World of Beer have been deploying the technology.

In fewer than 15 seconds, the device can print the image onto almost any drink with a foam surface. The ink used to make the images is malt-based and does not have any effect on the drink’s taste.

The Ripple Maker PM is available now.