Hot cooking oil - better safe than sorry
By: Daniel Dunn | Sales Executive at Restaurant Technologies
When deciding what aspect of the four areas (food quality, efficiency, safety, and sustainability) to cover this week, it became crystal clear when 18+ inches of snow fell in the Rochester area Tuesday. As I watched the snowplows clear the snow from restaurant parking lots, safety came to mind, specifically the process of disposing of your used cooking oil by transporting it across a snow-covered parking lot.
At customer sites, I have seen numerous routes restaurants take to the “rendering tank”(the dirty smelly dumpster type thing); I had a mall customer who had to take it down four floors, a hotel that took it down a flight of stairs and across a parking lot, and a restaurant that took it 30 yards outside the back door. I have also seen just as many ways to transport the used cooking oil: an old plastic pickle bucket, a big metal stew pot, an empty oil jug, and an oil caddy. The common denominator in all of these methods is the labor-intensive task of moving the oil from point A (the fryer) to point B (the rendering tank outside). When transporting 35 pounds or more of hot oil (some say they let it cool down but I see many restaurants consider cool 200 degrees) any distance a number of things can go wrong. I had a customer who poured “cooled oil” into a pickle bucket which promptly melted the plastic and burned his legs.
I was recently surveying a restaurant for the install of our system and was told by the chef to be very careful because the parking lot was a “sheet of ice”. As I was leaving that same chef was walking across the “sheet of ice” carrying a stock pot full of 200 degree oil. Many restaurants point out they haven’t had an accident or workers comp claim in a long time, if ever. Does that mean the process shouldn't be as safe as possible? An accident is defined as an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
You don’t plan accidents, they happen unexpectedly and unintentionally. Restaurant Technologies can help you limit the exposure of your employees to slips and falls, burns, etc. relating to cooking oil. Our system connects at your fryer so disposing is as simple as pushing a button. Which sounds safer, transporting the cooking oil through the restaurant and across the parking lot to a rendering tank or pushing a button? At Restaurant Technologies, we can make it that easy!
