With supply chain shortages having pushed up prices for much of your ingredients and equipment, and with economic uncertainty on the horizon, it’s prudent to look at how you might be able to reduce operating costs.
RECIPE FOR SUCCESS INGREDIENT CARD
Protect Your Business
Question:
How Preventative Maintenance Can Reduce Operating Costs?
Answer:
- For a relatively small initial investment, you can avoid the far greater cost of emergency repairs.
- A dedicated preventative maintenance plan is the most cost-effective way to eliminate the likelihood of breakdowns.
- With proper preventative maintenance in place, you should be able to save between 15-30 percent of existing reactive maintenance costs.
- It can also help reduce your energy bills by identifying equipment that is performing inefficiently.
With supply chain shortages having pushed up prices for much of your ingredients and equipment, and with economic uncertainty on the horizon, it’s prudent to look at how you might be able to reduce your operating costs.
One way to do that is by conducting preventative maintenance on your essential operating equipment, such as fridges, freezers, coolrooms and ovens. For a relatively small initial investment of time and money, you can avoid the far greater cost of emergency repairs, not to mention the potential damage to your business caused by downtime. This can be measured not only in loss of trade but wasted labour costs in employee work hours, increased food waste due to spoilage and the need to source replacement equipment immediately, often at a higher out-of-pocket cost.
In contrast, preventative maintenance makes it easier to keep track of how your equipment is performing, making it easier to plan for the future as the risk of unforeseen expenses for repairs is greatly reduced.
A dedicated preventative maintenance plan is the most cost-effective way to maintain your overall operating costs and eliminate the likelihood of breakdowns. And with kitchen equipment so expensive these days, extending its lifespan as long as possible allows you to get the maximum return on your initial investment. Most commercial kitchen equipment is designed to last between 10 to 20 years, but if you don’t look after yours, you may find yourself having to replace it halfway through its projected life cycle.
And with proper preventative maintenance in place, you should be able to save between 15-30 percent of your existing reactive maintenance costs – savings which you can then invest in other areas of the business.
Preventative maintenance can also help reduce your energy bills, by enabling you to identify equipment that is operating inefficiently – such as fridges with faulty thermostats, or ovens that are not cooking food evenly.
Other common concerns include deep fryers not performing efficiently due to oil not being skimmed and changed regularly enough; oven hoods not extracting efficiently due to not being cleaned, resulting in a hotter and stuffier working environment; dishwashers and coffee machines not being descaled often enough; and seals on fridges and freezers not being regularly checked and replaced.
Taking preventative action against these issues can lower your energy costs as well as guard against deterioration in the quality of the food you produce.
Another important consideration is that poorly maintained kitchen equipment may present a safety risk to staff. When you consider how long your kitchen equipment is running each day, some wear and tear are inevitable, but proper preventative maintenance will keep problems to a minimum.
It’s also a means of ensuring better resale value for your equipment when the time comes that you decide to upgrade. If it’s been uncared for, it will be much harder to sell than if it’s been well-maintained – and getting a good price for it is a far better option than having to fork out the additional cost of disposing of it yourself.
(Source: Hospitality Magazine 17/06/22 – Club Perfect).
Learn More… Download a copy of
How to Protect Your Food Business eGuide
ONLY $17.99.
BUY NOW
https://349200.e-junkie.com/product/1615589/How-to-Protect-your-Food-Business-eGuide
eGuide:
For a low investment, download a copy of How to Protect your Food Business eGuide. This eGuide is easy to read with lots of examples, case studies, tips, and activities…knowhow you can use it in your own business immediately.
This eGuide is delivered online, so you can access it from your computer at a time convenient to you.
Do You Want to Become Your Own Boss This Year?
Make It Happen!
