Freddy’s Cooking Oil Case Study - Restaurant Technologies | Automated Cooking Oil Management

COOKING OIL CASE STUDY

In just over two decades, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers has rapidly expanded from its first restaurant in Wichita, Kansas, to more than 500 U.S. locations. The fast-casual concept chain has made a name for itself serving cooked-to-order burgers and freshly churned frozen custard in settings of bright-red booths and checkered floors that harken back to diners from the 1940s and 1950s.

Behind its retro charm, however, Freddy’s very much embraces modern technology to enhance how it operates and serves customers.

One Freddy’s franchise owner recently deployed technology to tackle one of the toughest and messiest tasks in the kitchen – managing fresh and used cooking oil. Using an automated oil management system, the owner has been able to deliver food at the consistent quality that customers expect while reducing costs, safety risks, and strenuous work across his restaurants.

A Process Stuck in the Past

Paul Bruggeman opened six Freddy’s franchise locations across Minnesota in the last 10 years. When he opened the first Freddy’s in a suburb south of the Twin Cities, Bruggeman like many restaurant owners, was only familiar with one way of changing out oil – by hand.

Manually emptying oil that’s often still scalding hot into large buckets and then lugging those buckets outside to empty them is how many restaurants have changed their cooking oil for decades. But anyone who’s worked in a kitchen knows it can be a messy, time-consuming, and dangerous process.

“There’s always a risk of getting burned when cleaning out friers because you really need to get down into them to get all the old oil out,” Bruggeman said. “It’s a tedious process, and the bigger hurry you’re in, the more susceptible you are to having an accident.”

One of Bruggeman’s Freddy’s locations is also in a strip mall, which made changing cooking oil even more challenging. Employees had to haul the used oil past other stores and across the restaurant’s drive-thru lane to dispose of it in a grease pit.

Additionally, manually changing oil created quality-control issues. If employees forgot to change the oil or were too busy to do it, the oil would get overused, affecting food quality. Another problem was frozen oil. Because the restaurants got their oil delivered from Iowa, oil regularly arrived at restaurants fully or partially frozen during the winter months. This forced restaurant staff to get creative when trying to warm the oil up to get it back into its liquid state.

Upgrading to Contemporary Convenience

Bruggeman was at one of his restaurants when a sales rep from Restaurant Technologies came knocking to ask what he knew about automated oil management.

Bruggeman wasn’t familiar with the technology, but he was quickly sold on it when he learned how it could improve operations at his restaurants.

“After talking to some other franchisees, switching to automated oil management was a no-brainer for us,” Bruggeman said. “The costs were right, but the bigger draw for me was the technology’s functionality. It makes oil-changeouts easier, faster, and cleaner. It helps reduce our risks by eliminating manual oil-handling. And bulk oil delivery provided as part of the solution puts an end to us having to warm up oil that had frozen or turned to an icy sludge.”

Bruggeman chose to deploy the automated system at all of his Freddy’s franchise locations. Restaurant Technologies handled all aspects of the installations, including engineering a tailored solution to fit into the smaller strip-mall location. With the new solution, the restaurants now have an enclosed system that stored, filtered, monitored, supplied, and removed fryer cooking oil at the push of a button.

As part of the deployment, Bruggeman also opted for the Total Oil Management (TOM) portal from Restaurant Technologies. The cloud-based portal now allows Bruggeman to remotely track oil usage and changeout activities across all of his restaurants.

“After talking to some other franchisees, switching to automated oil management was a no-brainer for us,” Bruggeman said. “The costs were right, but the bigger draw for me was the technology’s functionality.”

“Once you understand what automated oil management changes for your kitchen, your people, and your bottom line, it becomes hard to find a reason to not use it,” Bruggeman said. “It makes you more efficient. It makes work easier, safer, and cleaner for employees. It lowers your costs. And it just makes your life easier. With this technology, everyone wins.”

A New Day

Automated oil management has greatly simplified how employees change oil at the six Minnesota Freddy’s locations.

“It was such an arduous process to change our oil before,” Bruggeman said. “You had to wear special gloves because of the hot oil. There were spills. And it was just a lengthy process. When we put the new system in, employees almost couldn’t believe how easy it was. With the push of a button, all the used oil is drained into a return tank, and then we add in the new oil with one more button. It’s all done in a matter of minutes.”

With the ability to track oil usage and filtration, Bruggeman has been able to maximize oil life and reduce oil usage at his restaurants. And because the system helps reduce the risk of burns and fires, he’s also seen his insurance premium drop by tens of thousands of dollars.

“Sometimes when you needed to haul used oil out of the kitchen, there was a risk that a burner would be left on and cause a fire,” Bruggeman said. “Now, everything is push-button. Oil is easily added and removed by the system, and the employee running it doesn’t need to leave the station.”

Tracking oil usage has also been simplified.

“Before, we had to manually review our orders week by week across six restaurants to understand our oil usage,” Bruggeman said. “Now, I get an email with details about how much oil we’re using to the pound at each store.” Since switching to automated oil management, Bruggeman has had conversations with fellow Freddy’s franchisees to urge them to adopt the system.

“Once you understand what automated oil management changes for your kitchen, your people, and your bottom line, it becomes hard to find a reason to not use it,” Bruggeman said. “It makes you more efficient. It makes work easier, safer, and cleaner for employees. It lowers your costs. And it just makes your life easier. With this technology, everyone wins.”