It goes without saying that in this day and age, businesses in the Food Away From Home section of the Foodservice industry including restaurants, convenience stores, college & universities, healthcare etc. are more focused than ever on the bottom line. One of the “easiest” line items to control in their Profit & Loss Statement is Repairs and Maintenance of equipment

Repairs and Maintenance costs of equipment are influenced by a number of factors:

• The quality and workmanship of the equipment. Better equipment runs better and last longer. This no time to be penny wise and pound foolish. Do your research. Talk to fellow foodservice professionals that have experience with the equipment you’re considering purchasing. Better yet, go to ChefWorthy.Pro to check the peer reviews, ratings and comparisons of foodservice equipment that you’re in the market for. Don’t just trust the sales and marketing collateral. Unless of course, it contains data from ChefWorthy. 😊
• Make sure the equipment is match to the work load you’re going to subject it to. Think “right tool for the job”. You wouldn’t carve an inside round with a plastic fork. If you’re going to beat the crap out the equipment, make sure you get a make and model that can withstand the beating you’re going to give it over a long period of time.
• Make sure your physical plant specs (i.e. electric, water etc.) match to needs of the equipment. For example, don’t buy a twin satellite coffee brewer and plug it into an extension cord or power strip. Firstly, it’s probably illegal. Secondly, power surges and drops will wreak havoc with the internal boards. Better yet, be proactive in enhancing the environment to improve equipment performance. Another coffee brewer example. Coffee equipment supply companies may try to entice you to have an inline water filter installed. Do it. They’ll say that doing so will improve the taste of the coffee. Which is true. What they might not tell you is that better quality water will be less likely to damage the water tank, piping and spray heads. Which means fewer repair visits. Less down time. Yes, you might have to pay a quarterly or semi-annual fee to replace a filter, but it’s better than having the water tank of your $2,000 coffee brewer fail because the water tank is completely filled with mineral deposits. Yes. It’s a thing.

But enough context. What is the key to lowering your equipment repair costs you ask? Cleaning. Sorry if you were expecting a more dramatic response. The simple act of regularly cleaning equipment will go a long way to lowering repair costs. Case in point: commercial coffee brewers (yes, again). When I was running the coffee program for a large convenience store distributor outside of Chicago, about 25% of the service calls were related to cleaning mineral deposits from spray heads. A problem that could have been avoided had the c-store staff been encouraged/instructed/made to clear the spray head. A five-minute task. From my perspective, this was the equivalent of paying the dentist to brush your teeth. In either case, it’s not that hard of a skill to master.

It was once said that “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. So don’t be a heathen and waste precious resources (aka money). Remember: If you have time to clean, you have time to clean.

Mathew Mandeltort
Co-Founder
ChefWorthy.Pro

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