Industry news

If you have been around the restaurant industry this year, you have probably noticed the conversation around kitchen cooling has changed. It is no longer about which air conditioner can handle the heat — it is about which system can survive grease, keep the crew working through a summer rush, and do it without turning the power bill into a horror story.

The numbers explain why. China's commercial kitchen air conditioner market passed RMB 12 billion in 2025, compounding at more than 18% a year for the past three years. Chain restaurant penetration has crossed 45%, and with food-safety and staff-welfare rules tightening, kitchen cooling has moved from a nice-to-have to a must-have.

Three technical routes dominate. The first is modified split units — residential air conditioners with grease filters bolted on. Cheap to buy, but once the filter clogs the cooling output falls off a cliff, and realistic service life is one to two years. The second is central air conditioning with a dedicated return-air duct system: effective, but the upfront cost and installation time put it out of reach for most small and mid-sized kitchens. The third is outdoor-circulation positive-pressure supply — the unit sits outside the kitchen, and a centrifugal fan pushes clean cold air to individual workstations, so the refrigeration core never touches grease in the first place. This is the fastest-growing route, and by 2026 it holds roughly 35% of the market.

The incumbent appliance giants still lead in modified split units, holding about 40% combined, but most of those are general-purpose machines with add-on filters. The real momentum sits with specialist manufacturers who engineered for heavy-grease environments from day one, and a second tier of regional players fills out another 30% or so.

Policy has added fuel this year. Four ministries, led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, named industrial heat pumps and industrial refrigeration and heating equipment among the six priority categories in the Energy-Saving Equipment High-Quality Development Implementation Plan (2026–2028). The 15th Five-Year Carbon Peaking Action Plan calls for accelerating the green and low-carbon transition of heating and cooling systems. In April, the updated energy-efficiency labeling catalog put 37 product categories — heat pumps, chillers, VRF systems among them — under mandatory efficiency supervision. And in June, GB/T 47620-2026 was released as China's first national standard for testing the system-level energy efficiency of chiller plants. Green cooling has moved from slogan to compliance requirement.

There is also a story that broke into the mainstream this summer: district cooling in Xuzhou, where abandoned mine water feeds radiant floor cooling and residents held 25°C indoors without air conditioning — a four-month electricity bill of just RMB 410. The district cooling market reached roughly RMB 38 billion in 2025 and is projected to pass 70 billion by 2030. It seems a world away from kitchen air conditioners, but it reflects the same underlying shift: buyers now reward systems that are comfortable, quiet and cheap to run, not just cold.

Three takeaways for commercial kitchen cooling. First, customers are buying systems, not boxes — integrated cooling, ventilation and exhaust design is becoming standard on premium tenders. Second, procurement has shifted from first cost to total cost of ownership, with energy efficiency, degradation rates and maintenance intervals now written into bid documents. Third, engineering capability is the differentiator: duct design, airflow layout and matching the existing exhaust system decide who wins the chain restaurant contracts.

The shakeout is far from over, but the direction is clear. Whoever solves the grease problem at the architectural level owns the next growth cycle. For operators, it is time to treat kitchen cooling as an investment, not an expense line.