News

Burger King franchisee's new solution conserves 15 percent of oil

September 12, 2013

TEAM Schostak Family Restaurants, a Michigan-based Burger King and Applebee's franchisee, recently installed the RTI closed-loop oil management system into its restaurants.

According to a news release, TEAM Schostak's goal with the deployment was to improve on three areas. Namely, manual oil handling had become a liability and resulted in worker-compensation claims, which the company wanted to decrease; oil waste needed to be minimized; and the company was seeking improved fried-food quality and consistency.

RTI's Total Oil Management (TOM) online portal provides managers with store-level visibility into oil-related activities to optimize usage and ensure consistency. In addition, a filtration monitoring system helps managers track filtration practices and helps employees adhere to standard operating procedures.

TEAM Schostak estimates that oil-use and employer-behavior insights gleaned from the RTI system will help conserve 10 to 15 percent of the oil used annually in each restaurant.

"The results we saw from RTI exceeded our expectations," said Jim Hannan, vice president of operations for TEAM Schostak's Burger King locations. "Thanks to RTI, we've gained optimal control over the cooking-oil handling process, benefiting our bottom line, our customers and our employees."

Before adopting automated oil handling, TEAM Schostak employees would manually empty used, hot cooking oil into pots, and carry them to disposal bins outside the kitchen doors. At one point, the company had five claims related to grease (e.g. burns or slip/fall incidents) in one month.

Four months after implementing the RTI system, TEAM Schostak's worker-compensation claims related to slips, falls and burns decreased. Managers hope to eliminate grease-handling injuries for good now that employees don't touch the oil. Additionally, the company said cleanliness is better because the system stops spills.

"Customers form instant impressions about our restaurants from the first moment they step inside," said John Andrews, vice president of operations for 65 of TEAM Schostak's Applebee's locations. "If cleanliness isn't up to par, they may never come back to our location or any others within the brand."

The RTI oil management system is comprised of two tanks – one for fresh oil and one for waste oil – and a secure fill box mounted to the exterior of each restaurant. RTI trucks routinely fill the fresh oil tank, while siphoning out the old oil and hauling it away.

Restaurant owners can also install sensors, either built into the fryer or attached to roll-up filtration units to monitor filtration practices. The sensors automatically capture filtration times and feed the data into the TOM portal, where mangers can pull reports, compare results to their SOPs, and make changes as needed.

"Employees always know when to filter and replace oil, and can do it by just holding a fill wand and pushing a button," said Roger Wood, director of operations for a large number of TEAM Schostak's Burger King restaurants. "We love hitting that sweet spot where we're maximizing the life of the oil and frying our food the same way each and every time – consistent texture, taste and color."

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