Hidden Ways to Save on Operating Costs in Your Restaurant

Finding ways to cut spending on budgets is something restaurant managers and owners concentrate on every day. Some traditional ways to save money include labor reductions and being resourceful with menu ingredients. But did you know that your restaurant’s ice machine can be one of the less obvious ways to save on operating costs? Here are some other hidden ways to help save on operating costs in your restaurant.

Startup And Shutdown Schedules

Running your restaurant means using electricity for a variety of reasons, including refrigeration, lights, and some equipment. While electricity is an unavoidable expense, making sure that you use energy efficiently to cut costs and help the environment is important. The simplest and most efficient way to control energy usage? Using connected equipment. By using the Internet of Things (IoT), your equipment can start up and shut down automatically by programming schedules using a solution like Open Kitchen by Powerhouse Dynamics.

Able to communicate with thermostats and electrical outlets, a start up/shut down schedule can advise restaurant operators and their teams what time equipment should turn on and off to save energy and provide customers with a seamless dining experience. For example, if a hot well for soup takes 15 minutes to get to temperature and the first soup won’t be served until 11am, then the hot well should be powered up at 10:45am. Turning it on any earlier is a waste of energy, and turning it on any later could mean cold soup for your guests.

Implement Labor Saving Products

Using automated equipment is a huge labor-saving process for staff. With the help of automation, your employees can focus on other tasks like customer service and kitchen operations. By automating tasks such as filling your commercial ice dispenser from a remote location with the Follett® RIDE® technology, your kitchen staff can handle other work that gets food served quicker, without compromising quality.

Reduce Utility Consumption

In addition to electricity, another expense that can affect your restaurant’s bottom line is water usage. Also unavoidable and a necessity for cooking and sanitation, it may seem hard to cut water usage. One simple way to save on operating costs is to use Follett ice machines. Compared to cube-style machines of a similar size, Follett ice machines use up to 50% less water. Many models are also ENERGY STAR certified. Follett can also contribute to LEED water use reduction credits.

Eliminate Preventative Scale Maintenance

Maintaining an ice machine isn’t only about saving water and electricity. Ice sanitation is just as important, not only because ice is considered a food product by the Food & Drug Administration, but also to help with extending the life of the machine. The cost of having reverse osmosis or other scale mitigation techniques can cost thousands of dollars per year. In most cases, the patented scale inhibiting design of Follett’s Horizon Elite ice machines eliminates the need for expensive scale treatment by concentrating and expelling the dissolved solids that naturally occur in water and can lead to scale buildup.

The best ice machines are the ones you can’t see. Take your ice for a RIDE.

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Topics: Beverage, IoT, Labor Savings, Restaurants