Kitchen Exhaust Maintenance Costs should be Relative To Sales!

In other words, 20% of R&M expenditure is essentially a waste of time and money! To the best of our knowledge, there is no such study available on Australia yet, but one can safely assume that Australian eateries manage their R&M expenditures in a similar fashion to their American colleagues.

In order to adhere with regulations, codes and to ensure you are 100% covered by insurance, kitchen exhaust maintenance (and repairs if/when required) is one of those ongoing expenses required to operate a commercial kitchen even though it is not a direct cost of producing the food or presenting the service.

Wouldn’t you like to get back your share of all that wasted money? I bet we know your answer….

Boosting repair and maintenance efficiency without sacrificing service quality and customer experience is the aim, and the less money you spend on repair and maintenance costs, the more you can invest in upgrading the quality of your food and services, improving customer experience, and ultimately, growing your business.

So here are some pointers on how you can reclaim some of that wasted repair and maintenance spend in future:

Controlling Fixed Costs

We know that fixed costs do not vary in relation to sales and that some labour costs can be classed as fixed. Kitchen exhaust maintenance servicing is one such overhead expense that needs to be performed anywhere from quarterly to annually.

Grease filter cleaning is an extension of this cost and they need to be cleaned regularly, or there may be a severe fire hazard. The filters must be cleaned in-house or exchanged by a service company at least once a week or more often if the cooking in the kitchen produces grease-rich food. These metal filters are meant to make duct cleaning more manageable, yet they only trap between 20-40% of the grease from getting into the ductwork.

Fortunately, both duct and filter cleaning costs are ‘controllable’, meaning they can be changed in the short-term. Even though duct and filter cleaning costs are budgeted as a constant cost, it is possible to reduce the service and the cost on short notice. What is more, they can become a variable!

Switching to Variable Costs

Variable costs are directly related to sales and business owners have full control over them. So how can duct and filter cleaning become a variable? By switching to Shepherd Filters solution. These Australian-made disposable kitchen grease filters work together with a commercial kitchen’s output: