Let's start with a question. Why is frying oil expensive and labor-intensive?
Utilizing large amounts of frying oil for your commercial kitchen can become an expensive cost to carry depending on the number of items you are frying and the frequency with which you're frying.
If you are looking to fry different proteins and vegetables within your commercial kitchen, you will likely need separate fryers for these items. With each set of fryers is the need for more fryer oil, doubling or tripling the cost of this product.
Essentially, frying oil becomes expensive because we need more and more of it, in addition to some of the reasons below.
Filtering and Oil Changing
Oil for fryers must be filtered daily and changed every few days, depending on how frequently they are used. The quality of the fryer oil can deteriorate quickly, changing the flavor and quality of your fried foods. Filtering this oil daily helps capture any loose particles that could be floating in the oil and contaminate future dishes. When the oil needs to be changed, all fryers must be drained of the old oil in its entirety and then replaced with new oil, which adds up quickly by the gallons.
Labor-Intensive
In order to properly filter and change the oil in these fryers, it requires manual labor to do the daily filtering and also manual labor to drain and filter the fryers regularly. This can take one or two of your staff members away from other prep or cooking duties for hours at the time. This requires your kitchen to pay additional labor hours for staff in addition to the fryer oil and maintenance expenses.
With the high cost of labor and oil expense, many restaurants are looking into ways to reduce these costs while maintaining fryers as a part of their kitchen. Below are some of the ways to reduce these cons of oil frying.
Purchasing a fryer that includes an automatic filtration system will eliminate the need for labor on this step daily. It can be set to filter at a certain time, and ensures that the process is done properly, maintaining the quality of your dishes.
When purchasing the right fryer, oil consumption for your restaurant or commercial kitchen can be decreased significantly with less oil. Since fry oil is the largest expense of this cooking style, cutting costs here would make the biggest impact for restaurateurs who want to continue to utilize this cooking method that is affordable.
With manual fryers, the oil levels can start to decrease depending on usage, and they can alter the temperature of the oil. In order for your fried dishes to cook properly, they must have the appropriate oil level and temperature at all times, especially while cooking. Choose a fryer that is designed to maintain these oil levels by topping it off as needed and maintaining the temperature while adjusting the oil level.
Not all fryers are made the same. Commercial kitchens that regularly fry food as a part of their daily menus need adequate equipment designed to not only cook the dishes properly, but benefit the kitchen in terms of labor and costs. If your commercial kitchen is not already equipped with the Pitco ROV Fryer, it is time to make that switch.
Designed with all of the cons of frying in mind, these fryers allow frying to use less effort and even less expenses that before. Complete with everything from automatic operation and filtration to reducing oil consumption, these fryers are an investment that will save your kitchen both time and money as you continue to satisfy your customers with the fried dishes they enjoy. Schedule a free fryer assessment with us today, and get all the information you'll need to fully consider a reduced oil volume fryer.