Managing Used Cooking Oil in Hotels

The hotel and its kitchens

Hotels face special challenges that individual restaurants and strip malls do not have to deal with. Hotel kitchens often run 24/7. There is room service. (Do we need a kitchen near the elevators?) Banquets, weddings and other large events often occur simultaneously competing with the 3 times per day regular meal service. 

Space planning for capacity, location and work flow is a large task when it comes to kitchen design in hotels. With all this to think about, used cooking oil automation is rarely a consideration in the design of a hotel kitchen, but for safety, savings and service it should be!

Traffic and Workflow in hotel kitchens

Food has to be transported from the hotel kitchen to guest areas such as banquet rooms, guest rooms, pools so you have to account for access to corridors, hallways and have the tools to transfer this food efficiently. How do you organize the kitchen? Should the kitchen be organized into zones based on what part of the hotel is being served or organized into prep stations depending on the food being served? 

Designing pathways where people and food transfer carts can easily pass each other is critical. Before designing a kitchen always involve chefs, waitstaff, kitchen workers in the design. Minimizing the steps taken and the risk of spills can bolster profits.

You’ll also need to think about where your hotel’s used cooking oil will be stored, and how your staff will transport it there. This is often given short shrift in the design of a hotel kitchen. You’ve figured out how to transfer the food but how do you move the used cooking oil from the fryer to the waste oil tank/bin  and keep it away from customers while keeping employees safe.

Flexibility because you can’t anticipate everything

Prioritizing flexibility may sound trite but it is important. If you are handling buffets, room service, a restaurant and a convention room it is extremely important to build in flexibility. The workflows for these services can be very different and giving your staff the ability to easily set up and take down workstations, prep tables, shelves and heating elements is a very important consideration.

Storage and efficiency is paramount

Kitchens require an immense amount of storage, some refrigerated or frozen and storage at any temperature. Storage has to be thought through carefully. Frequency of access, temperature, pathway, quickness of retrieval all should be factored in. You wouldn’t want your break rooms taking up space that could have been seats in your restaurant. And service elevators near the kitchen handling room service is a must. And both food and used cooking oil storage has to be designed with maximum flexibility for access by food prep workers, chefs and your used cooking oil collector

Kitchen design options

You have to create a practical and flexible space with different work zones. There are four basic configurations of restaurant kitchens and all of them work in the right situation: an assembly line, ergonomic kitchen, island-style, and zone-style configuration. They all have their pros and cons, so weigh them carefully.

Savings from safely handling used cooking oil in hotels

Safety is a major consideration in the increasingly complicated design of hotel kitchens. But few designers think of the handling of used cooking oil and restaurant grease as a key component of hotel kitchen design. ReGrease has numerous options to fit the varied configurations of hotel kitchens. We can automate the flow from fryers to a used cooking oil tank and handle it with the push of a button. We have caddies where a fryer can drop its oil in and then the caddy can be wheeled to the tank to empty it for recycling. We have wands to make the transfer of used oil from fryer to oil to tank extremely easy. We have shortening shuttles to safely and easily transfer used cooking oil from fryers to outside waste oil bins.

Restaurants spend $12B per year on slips, burns and falls, most of which are associated with used cooking oil. Automating the process of handling used cooking oil will make a huge difference in the safe functioning of your hotel kitchen. ReGrease customizes and automates the used cooking oil handling for hotel kitchens: the containers, the transfers, the pumping, the pickup, recycling and the grease traps. Your employees may never need to touch used cooking oil again

Get a Free Consultation

We’d love to discuss your oil, grease, and automation needs. Drop us a line and we’ll work to find the best service offering for your situation.

Call ReGrease at 888-475-6057.