A commercial kitchen is a hygiene machine that happens to cook. Stainless is there because it can be washed, not because it is fashionable. The old Alltrade food-side products — benches, coving, trays, corner guards — were already a detailing set.
We will not publish a fake council checklist. We will publish the metal habits inspectors and plant managers keep rewarding. Alltradestainlesssteel.com.au is an editorial journal, not a merchant and not a certifier. FSANZ publishes the Food Standards Code. State health departments and local councils enforce it. Your building surveyor and food-premises officer still win any argument this essay starts.
There is no single Australian law that says a café bench must be 1.5 mm 304 No. 4. Inventing a clause number you cannot cite is how journals get people fined. What the Code and the enforcement culture keep asking for is simpler: surfaces that can be cleaned, no dirt hotels, a wash that works, and materials that do not shed into food.
Surfaces that can be cleaned
- 304 No. 4 as the default face. See food-grade stainless.
- Continuous welds where the surface is washed. No skip-weld dirt ladders.
- Coved intersections, not square silicone caves.
- Equipment on legs or mobile, so the floor exists.
- No raw particle board as a food face with a stainless hat that does not seal.
Benchtops scale up: thicker sheet, more stiffening, more abuse. Thickness is a stiffness choice.
What “cleanable” means on the metal
A food surface has to take a cloth, a hose, and a sanitiser without turning into a map of pits. Austenitic 304 with a directional No. 4 is the Australian default because it wipes and it hides light scratching. A wild grit, an unsealed weld, or a raw shear in a splash zone is a hygiene defect before it is an aesthetic one.
Continuous welds belong on washed intersections: bowl to top, upstand to top, table frame to underside where soil can sit. Skip welds are faster. They are also dirt ladders. Heat tint should come off. Passivation after fabrication is not theatre on a dairy table.
Open threads, unsealed penetrations and timber that can swell into a sink cut are the photographs that turn up in an audit folder. So is a square silicone fillet that has split and gone grey. Silicone is a seal. It is not a cove.
Coving, corner guards and wash-down geometry
Food rooms use a radius at the floor so a mop and a hose have somewhere to go. They often want a wipeable upstand at the bench. Stainless coving is a folded or pressed profile. Corner guards keep a plaster arris from becoming a trolley wound and a paint chip in the food room.
Read the coving and corner guards essay before you write “some stainless on the corners.” Height, leg width, thickness, fold past 90°, alloy and fixings are the specification. 304 indoor; 316 if the hose and the salt deserve it. A4 fasteners in a wash-down corridor, not a mixed tin.
Wash-down is a design condition. Floors fall. Equipment stands on legs or wheels. Walls take a hose without a dirt step. If the room cannot be washed, the stainless is jewellery.
The kitchens and hygiene hub links the rest of the food-side map.
Services and splash
Holes for services should be planned, sleeved, and sealable. A tangle of unsealed penetrations behind a bench is the audit photograph. Heat equipment needs clearance that is not our diagram — it is the manufacturer’s.
Legs, mobiles and the floor that must exist
A bench hard-down to a floor you cannot mop is a soil farm. Specify legs with adjustable feet you can clean around, or a mobile frame with a lock. Plinths need a cove and a plan. Do not invent a sealed box that nobody can inspect.
Splash zones want fewer joints, not more. A mixer on a thin splashback needs a reinforcing plate. A pot-wash trough wants fall, an integral or well-sealed bowl, and an upstand that is actually coved or folded — not a bead of sealant pretending to be one.
Protect the finish until the tiler and the plasterer are gone. Cement splash and brick acid age a new 304 face in an afternoon. Film stays on. Peel at handover, wash, photograph.
Wash chemistry
If the regime includes chlorine, you need rinse discipline and often 316. Cleaning without chloride damage is the essay to pin in the chemical cupboard. Bleach dried on a splashback is a pit map.
304, 316 and the hose
| Room or duty | Starting alloy | Finish | Notes the metal cares about |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indoor café / canteen prep | 304 | No. 4 | Default Australian bench. Rigid carcass, wipeable upstand. |
| Pot-wash and wet walls | 304, or 316 if specified | No. 4 | Continuous welds, true coving, no open threads. |
| Brine, pickle, seafood | 316 | No. 4 | Chlorides in the food, not just the air. |
| Coastal open kitchen | 316 | No. 4 | Salt plus fat. See outdoor cooking stainless. |
| Specified chlorinated wash-down | 316 | No. 4 | Rinse. Do not let hypochlorite dry on the face. |
| Indoor dry servery | 304 | No. 4 | Still a food face. Still no raw board. |
304 versus 316 remains the door. 316 is not a hygiene upgrade by itself. A dirty 316 skip-weld is worse than a clean 304 cove.
Neutral detergent does the daily work. Food-safe sanitisers as the operator’s plan specifies. Household bleach and brick acid are not kitchen products on stainless. If a cleaner has already used them, flood with fresh water and stop polishing until you know what the face is.
Tea staining on a splashback after a reno is often mortar, acid or carbon swarf, not a failed mill pack. Site cutting and shared grinders belong outside the food room or behind a clean-down.
Outdoor, coastal and the room that is not quite a kitchen
An open kitchen on a coastal deck is still a food room and also a salt room. Specify 316, fall, A4, and a wash schedule — outdoor kitchens and barbecue stainless and coastal care. A bench beside a pool fence picks up chlorinated mist as well as sea spray. That is pool and marine fittings territory, not a 304 indoor spec with a nicer view.
Do not mix a zinc frame, aluminium cladding and 304 screws and then blame the lid. Dissimilar metals are a maintenance plan you did not write.
What the journal will not sign
A fire-engineered exhaust. A grease-arrestor size. A structural mezzanine. Those have authors with tickets. We will say: specify alloy, finish, thickness, hygienic welds, coving, and a cleaning SOP that does not attack the metal. Then let the certifier work.
We will also not invent FSANZ clause numbers, council checklists, or a “must be this thick” law. The Food Standards Code talks about cleanable premises and food safety. It does not replace a fabricator who knows how to fold an upstand or a manager who rinses the sanitiser off.
A specification paragraph you can hand on
“304 No. 4 benches, 1.5 mm or as spans require, continuous hygienic welds, coved floor and wipeable upstands, equipment on legs or mobile, planned sealed services, filmed until handover, 316 and A4 where brine, coastal air or chlorinated wash-down apply, cleaning SOP without bleach or brick acid.” That paragraph is a briefing. “Stainless throughout, commercial grade” is not.
The old catalogue already sold the detailing set. The journal keeps the set because inspectors still wipe the same corners. If you need the everyday top rather than the plant, start with stainless steel benchtops in Australia and come back here when the room has a hose.