By Marilyn Kitzes 

After making a splash at the National Restaurant Association trade show in May 2019, the culinary crowd has become curious about the sousVcart, an all-in-one sous vide solution for those who work in a professional kitchen. A complete mobile system that allows for vacuum sealing and sous vide cooking, the sousVcart was created by commercial kitchen-electric company Vesta Precision and James Beard Award–winning Seattle chef Jason Wilson.

“Jason and I were having coffee and discussing sous vide. Jason loves the process for many applications, but he indicated that there’s a significant problem with commercial sous vide equipment,” says Vesta CEO Bob Lamson. “It’s usually heavy, and often the vacuum sealing equipment becomes stationed too far away from the sous vide cooker, which makes the sous vide process inefficient—sometimes impossible—in a time-demanding busy kitchen. He also wanted a solution for being able to do more sous vide cooking at major catering events.”

Their collaborative brainchild is the sousVcart, which offers three electrical outlets, a 25-foot retractable cord, smooth gliding wheels that lock into place, and detachable parts that allow for easy transportation—it goes wherever busy cooks need to be. And because the lids of the sousVcart are stainless steel, when the cart is closed, it provides additional counter space.

“Our company focuses on problem-solving precision-temperature cooking and also precision-temperature food storage and transportation applications,” says Lamson, who notes that the cart, which starts at $1,799, is sold separately from its sous vide cooking products, but can be purchased as a bundle with other items.

To that end, Vesta Precision offers a wide range of sous vide tools to stock the sousVcart, such as water baths with immersion circulators, vacuum sealers, vacuum bags, and more via their website. As of this writing (August 2019), Vesta Precision has been distributing the cart to chefs, and according to Lamson, “Users have said the cart improves commercial kitchen efficiency in addition to making the sous vide cooking process itself much more efficient. For catering, it is even more significant in terms of assured quality presentations.”