Twenty Grids, One Oven: Convotherm’s Big maxx Combis Reach the UK

Convotherm’s maxx combi oven family has gained floor-standing 20-grid models — the maxx 20.10 and 20.20 — and as of last month they are being actively promoted to UK operators through the Welbilt channel.

The models are not brand new globally — Convotherm announced the expansion in March 2026, debuting the units at the INTERNORGA show in Hamburg. August’s change is the UK push, aimed squarely at care homes, schools and colleges, hospitals, hotels and contract caterers — kitchens that cook in big batches to a fixed clock.

What the big maxx models claim to do

The maxx range was previously tabletop only, with 6-grid and 10-grid units. The 20.10 and 20.20 take the same platform to floor-standing scale. Convotherm’s own figures for the 20.10 are around 40 kilograms of vegetables in roughly twelve minutes, or approximately 20 kilograms of French fries in 18 minutes.

Two claims matter more than raw speed for institutional kitchens. First, a fully automatic cleaning programme, so the oven washes itself at the end of service rather than taking a staff member off the rota. Second, connectivity: the units link into Welbilt’s KitchenConnect platform over Wi-Fi or LAN, which lets a multi-site operator monitor ovens remotely and push the same cooking programmes to every kitchen in the group — useful when the same menu must come out identically across ten care homes.

Who actually needs twenty grids?

A 20-grid combi is a production tool, not an upgrade. If your service pattern is à la carte — small loads, cooked to order, staggered through the evening — a big unit spends most of its life half empty, and two smaller combis give more flexibility plus a backup if one fails.

The case stacks up where the whole site eats at once: a 200-cover school lunch, a hospital ward round, a hotel banqueting suite. There, one large load beats four small ones on labour, timing and consistency. Convotherm’s stated capacity figures are the manufacturer’s own, achieved under its test conditions — treat them as a comparison point between models, not a promise for your menu.

Craven’s verdict

The strength is honest scale: a batch-cooking oven with self-cleaning and multi-site programme control, from an established combi maker, now with UK backing. The caution is everything around the box — a floor-standing 20-grid unit needs serious power, ventilation, water and drainage, plus door clearance to get it into the building, and those site costs can rival the oven itself. It suits big-batch caterers with the infrastructure to feed it. The next step is a site check before any order: Craven Cooling can review your space, services and delivery access, and help you weigh one large combi against a pair of smaller ones.

The stunt — The One-Week Batch Ledger: For seven days, log every oven load your kitchen cooks: what it was, roughly how many kilograms, and the time it went in and came out. At the end of the week, look for the busiest 90 minutes. That window — not the brochure — tells you whether you need twenty grids, ten, or simply better timing.

Sources: Convotherm announcement: maxx family gains floor-standing models (March 2026) · Convotherm maxx series page (20.10 and 20.20) · Restaurant Industry: large-capacity combis for UK operators (August 2026)