Stop Washing Your Restaurant Profits Down the Drain
Jan 21, 2021
Blog Contributor and GAHFN Member
Raymond Amengual
Chemical Specialist
TriMark USA, Commercial Restaurant Supplies & Equipment (trimarkusa.com)
Keeping margins and profits inline in the restaurant industry is a constant challenge. They are so many moving parts in a restaurant's operation making it easy to overlook ways to save money.
Most of these losses start from the first decision made and then become compounded as time passes. One of those areas is your purchasing or rental of a dish machine and chemicals.
The average restaurant can easily spend more than 1.5% of their gross sales on chemicals, rental dish machine cost, repair, and maintenance of the machine if they owned, plus water and electricity cost if the dish machine is not running efficiently or is a refurbished old model.
For example: If a restaurant sales per week are $35,000.00 and all their dishwashing program cost are not inline, at a minimum average of 1.5% expenditure that will equal to $525.00 per week, times 52 weeks of the yearly operation = $27,300.00 x a minimum of a 3-year rental dish machine agreement=$81,900 not adding payroll wages, taxes and workers compensation insurance cost for the employee using the dish machine.
So how can a restaurant operator deviate from such expenses? Here some tips.
When the time comes to rent or buy a dish machine select an energy efficient unit.
Check with your energy provider for rebates on energy efficiency dish machine.
Do not engage in a rental agreement where you are been charge per rack usage or a minimal chemical purchase to get maintenance services.
Avoid if possible, purchasing liquid chemicals for your dishwasher program since their yield is much less than solid chemicals and your cost will be higher due to frequent usage of liquid products.
Make sure to have as many chemicals as possible that can be used for multiple applications to reduce inventory or buying over counter products at retail price.
Ask your chemical provider if they offer free spray bottles with labeling for their products.
Control your budget by making sure you are purchasing what you need not what your chemical distributor is requiring for your spending.
If you are not getting prompt 24/7 emergency service, is time to look for another option to avoid the costs downtime.
When possible, do not store chemicals under the dish machine area to avoid and reduce potential spills and employee accidents.
Make sure your water heater and dish machine are properly calibrated to avoid extra usage of chemicals, which drives up costs.
For more information on how to achieve cost savings, connect with Raymond Amengual at TriMark Raymond.Amengual@trimarkusa.com