Only 10 years ago, it seemed the commercial kitchen industry was looking to its past for answers to common ventilation problems. Manufacturers were still largely promoting the same systems sold in the 1970s — principally short-circuit hoods and belt-drive fans with manual on-off controls.

But now the industry is embracing its future armed with research and proven technologies borrowed from related fields such as fume hoods, vav systems, and analog-digital controls.