Starting a business is never an easy task, even more so if you are looking to start a food establishment. Besides the planning and preparation that goes into making sure your food tastes good, there is also the concern of choosing the equipment that can bring your food to your customers quickly and efficiently. Although equipment can only do so much to help you cook food better, making use of machines can help you and your staff focus on the parts of the business that require a human touch, such as working the front of the house and food prep. The best of such machines are, of course, the dishwashers.
Now, one can argue that the role of the dishwasher could be filled by a human worker without any major issues. While this may be true, there is no denying that a good commercial grade warewasher can make the difference between good food service and great food service, helping to make sure that there will always be clean plates and utensils. This could be comparable to other parts of the commercial kitchen how they are hygienically maintained. Just as you would want to ensure that your ventilation hoods are being cleaned thoroughly, potentially by searching for companies in your local area with terms such as Sarasota Restaurant Hood Cleaning Services, if applicable. You would also want to make sure that the floors are being cleaned to a high standard which is required in places where food is prepared. These are all reasons as to why you may want to have a commercial warewasher as well to help with keeping up the standards.
The question is, how does one go about choosing the right commercial dishwasher for their business? We will be answering that question with this quick buying guide from https://warewashingsolutions.com.au/.
What to Look For in a Commercial Warewasher
There are a huge variety of warewashers available on the market, coming in all manner of shapes and sizes from different brands and manufacturers – this all but guarantees that you will be able to find the right one for you. However, while purchasing one, you also need to keep in mind how much water is used. Else, you might end up paying additional water utility bills. Either you can switch your water supplier (discover more here) or buy a warewasher that consumes adequate water and less time too.
Now, we won’t go into the types of warewashers available on the market, as we have a separate guide for that; instead, we will be focusing more on the factors that will help you narrow down your choices as you sift through product catalogues. Here are those factors:
Efficiency
Thanks to continued innovation and stricter environmental regulations, most if not all modern warewashers tick the efficiency box by design, performing complete cycles whole consuming only a fraction of the water and soap that would have been used were the washing done by hand. That being said, if you want to be sure that you are buying a truly efficient commercial dishwasher, some dishwashers on the market are awarded an Energy Star certification from the United States, which shows that a dishwasher has passed a more stringent set of standards for both water and energy efficiency. According to Energy Star, dishwashers with this certification will allow you to save even more on utility bills than the average washer. Furthermore, getting extra coverage from companies like First American Home Warranty will ensure that the washer gets fixed or replaced when needed, making them more efficient and money-saving.
Speed
Much like the last point, most commercial warewashers nowadays are designed to work very quickly to keep up with the demands of a restaurant at its most crowded hours. Most warewasher designs can achieve this by using water at high temperatures and pressures to remove and clean dishes quickly, while certain conveyor designs are able to clean hundreds of dishes per hour by continually washing batches of them on racks.
Size
Now, the idea of getting to wash hundreds of dishes per hour might tempt you to purchase a conveyor-type warewasher for your restaurant, you also have to take note of the fact that conveyor-type warewashers are also very large. As the owner of the restaurant, you should consider the amount of space you have in your kitchen, as well as the number of customers per day. If, for example, you own a small diner in a suburban area that serves only a couple hundred customers a day, a conveyor-type warewasher will end up not working at its best as it is designed to handle much larger operations. With this in mind, the opposite would also hold true – if you have a larger food establishment such as a fast food chain or buffet, a small under-the-counter dishwasher will struggle to keep up with a large number of customers that come through the doors every day.
Budget
You should understand that a commercial warewasher is a significant investment – some a larger investment than others. Besides the size of your food establishment, your budget will also play a major role in choosing the warewasher that will serve your restaurant for up to the next decade. Although you may want that shiny new warewasher with a digital screen and a laundry list of features, that money might be better spent on equipment for cooking and food prep.
The commercial warewasher has come a long way from lumbering giants to the sleek, optimised, and highly efficient machines that you see in food establishments today. By considering the efficiency, speed, size, and the amount of money you are willing to one, you should be able to find the commercial warewasher that will serve you and your customers for many years to come.