Foodservice Efficiency Experts

Energy-, labor- and time-saving equipment now offers faster returns for willing foodservice operators.

By Derek Gale, Associate Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 8/1/2007

Carl’s Jr. has turned to high-efficiency fryers across the chain. With return on investment for the fryers at less than two years, franchisees are on board.

When Shaw’s Crab House recently updated its more-than-20-year-old kitchen, Partner Steve LaHaie brought in an energy-efficient triple fryer. It cost nearly three times what a low-end fryer might have, but energy and oil savings mean estimated payback time is a speedy 1.3 years.

"Usually every year we change an oven or a steamer" at the Chicago restaurant, LaHaie says, adding that future equipment investments all will be in energy-efficient models.

With energy costs rising and consumers becoming increasingly environmentally sensitive, foodservice operators across the country are paying closer attention to energy use. And as operators of all sizes continue to realize the environmental and financial significance of minimizing equipment space, experts believe there will be a change in the way foodservice equipment is selected.

"A very small investment in equipment could save them a lot of money," says Mark Godward, president and founder of Strategic Restaurant Engineering, a unit of Dublin, Ohio-based foodservice consultancy WD Partners.

"The rising cost of energy will make return on investment [a matter of] months instead of years," Godward notes. "That is important because when you buy a piece of equipment, if the return is going to be a couple of years, who knows how well it will be working [then]? You may need to change it."

Don Fisher, president of Fisher-Nickel Inc., the engineering consulting firm that operates the San Ramon, Calif.-based Food Service Technology Center (an equipment testing facility), concurs that operators are more energy-minded. "There’s a desire to be perceived as green, sustainable, environmentally friendly," he says. "In the last year, this industry has really sat up and asked, ‘What can we do?’"

According to Foodservice Equipment & Supplies’ (a sister publication of R&I) 2007 Industry Forecast Operator Report, 29% of foodservice operators say energy efficiency will be a major factor in their buying decisions for any major new or replacement equipment purchases this year. Forty-five percent say energy will be somewhat of a factor.

Manufacturers have responded to that interest by producing more energy-efficient equipment for operators to choose from. "They’re all starting to address efficiency," says Clifton Geisler, director of R&D for Dallas-based Brinker International. "Manufacturers really are starting to step up to the plate."

Operational Impact

Fisher says that according to the old-school mindset, there’s a trade-off between energy efficiency and performance, but, he notes, that assumption isn’t true in most cases. "Generally speaking, we see strong correlation between efficiency and throughput," he says.

Geisler agrees and contends that better energy efficiency usually means better equipment design. Still, Brinker runs its own operations tests on all prospective equipment to validate its performance. "It’s a costly and time-consuming process, but we find that [it] works very well for us," Geisler says. "We have found certain energy-efficient pieces of equipment won’t meet our specific needs."

For smaller operators unable to do such testing, the Food Service Technology Center and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program (designed to identify efficient products) are key resources. "There’s a degree of confidence for the independent operator who can’t afford to do his own testing—[that] the equipment has met some threshold," Fisher says.

Another benefit of energy-efficient equipment is that it almost always reduces the heat load in a kitchen, making for better working conditions. "Inefficient equipment loses a lot of energy in the surrounding environment," Godward explains. "Induction cooking is comfortable to work in. A flat grill is more comfortable [to cook on] than a char-broiler, and a high-efficiency fryer will be cooler on the outside than a less-efficient one."

Return On Investment

Juliann Rogers, energy manager for Carpinteria, Calif.-based Carl’s Jr., says the quick-service chain sees payback on its investment in high-efficiency fryers in less than two years, and notes that such equipment almost always is implemented across the board with very few questions from franchisees.

Brinker, too, has had almost no pushback from franchisees despite higher initial costs of corporate-specified energy-efficient equipment, Geisler says. "If it makes good business sense, it makes good business sense," he says. "We’re not just adopting it for the energy efficiency. There’s operational value."

One product that has made good business sense for Brinker is variable-speed hood controllers. "We’ve been able to improve the efficiency ratings of our buildings, and we are really happy with the systems," Geisler says. "We are pretty much using [them] across our brands."

Fisher says that the economics of variable-speed hood controllers stand on their own. "There’s pretty positive ROI versus the equipment underneath it," he says. He cautions, however, that retrofitting a kitchen for a specific product can cost significantly more than specifying the item for a new-build operation.

Perhaps that’s why over the past 18 months, Carl’s Jr. has redesigned its model kitchen ventilation system for new construction, says Rogers, and changed from short-cycle hoods to exhaust-only hoods. Doing so has reduced upfront and ongoing costs, she says.

Not Quite All Aboard

Along with colleges and universities, large chains with the resources to assess what equipment will work best and have the least-negative environmental impact over the long term are more likely to make more expensive equipment purchases upfront, while individual operators often struggle to see the bigger picture, the consultants say.

"It’s a challenge," Fisher says. "A guy walks onto a dealership floor and sees a fryer for $1,000 versus an Energy Star fryer for $3,000. So he buys the [first one] because he only has a budget for $1,000."

Nancy Hudson, a foodservice-management lecturer in the department of nutrition at the University of California, Davis, explains: "On-site operations do not always pay for actual energy usage, so the impact on the bottom line is not obvious. In my experience, they look more at purchase price than life-cycle operating costs."

In addition to registering sticker shock, frequently "operators want a lot of capacity to do volume," Godward says. "It’s like comparing [kitchen equipment] to muscle cars with lots of horsepower. [They like] lots of BTUs on char-broilers so they can crank them up. But char-broilers are very wasteful of energy."

Fisher seconds that sentiment, saying, "Broilers remain pretty dumb animals, at about 30% efficiency."

Geisler notes, however, that although broilers often are picked on, new technologies are coming to market to address issues such as widely varying surface temperatures; this will make broilers more efficient.

In other cases, products that have caught on elsewhere in the world just haven’t seen the same reception in the United States. Induction cook-tops, for example, are extremely efficient pieces of equipment (when pans are not in contact with the cooking surface, they stop using energy) that are popular in Europe but that remain a niche product domestically. Here, they are used mostly for portable cooking stations in noncommercial operations.

Commercial operators have been hesitant to switch from the six-burner range to a large induction unit because induction units cook differently, Godward says, resulting in a different taste to the food.

"Chefs are very comfortable with Old Reliable," notes Jon Perrault, director of quality assurance for Buffalo, N.Y.-based Delaware North Companies, referencing the common six-burner range. Plus, "if you don’t care for [induction cook-tops] properly, they are easily broken," he says. "It’s a glass top. People get excited and they want to sauté on them like the old school. When they do that, you’ll see a crack. And that hurts to see because we know what we spent on them."

Moving Forward

The general consensus from consultants and forward-thinking operators is that the potential savings from using energy-efficient equipment are significant enough to warrant the equipment’s consideration for all renovations and new-construction projects. But operators should understand that energy-efficient products are not one-size-fits-all; certain items may offer better performance or better returns in different environments.

Operators also need to pay close attention to cleaning and maintenance, Godward says. He compares kitchen equipment to cars: "Having it clean and fine-tuned will make a difference on how it drives," he says. "And with the increased cost of energy, the frequency of maintenance and tuneup will have to go up. Some energy-efficient pieces of equipment may lose their effectiveness if not maintained."

As for getting more operators involved, part of the solution, Fisher says, lies with the incentive programs that various utilities have begun to put in place for commercial kitchen equipment. "That is a cornerstone to trying to change independent operators’ mindset," he says.

"The real thing is that the guy running the restaurant doesn’t have a separate gas or electric meter on each piece of equipment," Fisher notes. "He doesn’t know that the combi-oven has a $6,000-a-year energy price tag on it. Or that the broiler uses $4,000 a year in gas, which is equal to what he originally paid [for it]. Without the ability to see the energy going into all these pieces of equipment, it’s hard to recognize and see value."

Online calculators (available at www.energystar.gov) also can help operators determine the annual savings they might reap through the use of more-energy-efficient equipment. All of the calculators offer results for electrical energy savings; some also address gas savings and/or water savings.

Harvard Cleans Up To Go Green

Between the 2005 and 2006 school years, Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) completed a $7.1 million renovation of a kitchen and two serveries at its Dunster House and Mather House residence dining halls. The goal was to go green.

Part of that meant saving energy, so HUDS looked to energy-efficient technologies, including low-flow spray valves and sinks, efficient dishwashers and variable-speed hoods. The dishwashers alone save HUDS about $18,000 a year based on water and energy savings, says HUDS Director of Facilities Bob Leandro.

"Here at the university, we have a green campus loan fund," he explains. "I can take a loan to replace a dish machine, and if I can show a five-year or less payback on the investment, they’ll give me an interest-free loan. The savings I get is how I pay the loan back. I would say dish machines generally have had a three- to three-and-a-half-year payback."

Leandro also has been pleased with hood control systems, which now are in 12 locations (including Dunster and Mather houses). "Those things have been phenomenal," he says. "We change everything in a renovation, so we put in high-efficiency motors and a variable-frequency drive. ... Those have very good paybacks."

He cites one example where the university is saving $10,000 a year in energy on a $40,000 project. "Between a three- and four-year payback—that’s a good project for anybody," he says.

Leandro also is proud of the water savings HUDS achieves through a pulper/extractor installed during the renovation. "The biggest water user in a kitchen is in the dishroom, but it’s not a dishwasher," he explains. "The biggest user is the scrapping trough."

With a normal scrapping system, everything that comes off a plate goes into the trough and gets ground up and sent down a drain. The system Leandro uses takes the waste, extracts out the liquid and puts the pulp into a barrel that can be composted while reusing 80% of the water. "There’s a huge savings in water," Leandro says. "No food waste goes down the drain."

Savings In The Hood

The San Ramon, Calif.-based Food Service Technology Center (FSTC), an equipment testing facility under the auspices of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., has studied a number of installations of variable-speed hood control systems with varying levels of positive results.

At the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, the use of such a system resulted in a 62% reduction in electrical demand for an annual cost savings of $9,910 plus an additional annual cost savings of $9,460 from the energy saved through a reduced heat load. Combining those resulted in a return on investment of less than one year.

Another installation at an Applebee’s unit near Los Angeles was shown to reduce energy use by more than two-thirds (68%), for an annual savings of $2,380, yielding a payback of 2.5 years.

And at a new-build Culver’s location in Sauk City, Wis., the same system saved the restaurant about $2,800 per year in energy costs, yielding a two-year return on investment.