The Secret Science of Restaurant Fryer Oil Management with Ron Cardwell

In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, Jeremy Julian and guest Ron Cardwell from Restaurant Technologies Incorporated discuss the importance of cooking oil in the restaurant industry. Ron, the Director of Commodity Strategy, explains how their oil management system can help restaurants deliver the best guest experience through effective oil handling practices. They also delve into the types of oils used by restaurants, the factors affecting oil performance, and the importance of proper oil management for safety and sustainability. Tune in to learn how to maximize oil usage, manage costs, and ensure the quality and consistency of your restaurant's food.

00:00 RTI Inc

00:14 Introduction and Guest Introduction

01:45 Role and Responsibilities at Restaurant Technologies

03:01 Sustainability Efforts and Environmental Impact

06:01 Understanding Cooking Oils in Restaurants

10:00 Oil Management and Performance

14:30 Economic Considerations of Different Oils

19:24 The Finite Supply of Beef Tallow

20:18 Challenges with Peanut Oil Supply

20:56 Consistency and Performance in Cooking Oils

22:08 Educating Restaurants on Oil Management

25:30 The Importance of Proper Oil Handling

26:57 Safety Concerns in Oil Management

28:23 Choosing the Right Oil Supplier

32:39 How to Connect with Restaurant Technologies

Transcript

0:02

This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, helping you run your restaurant better. In today's episode, I am joined by Ron Cardwell from Restaurant Technologies Incorporated. Uh, uh, you're listening to the show and so you might think restaurant technology is incorporated and restaurant technology. Guys, no real affiliation other than they've been a great supporter of the show for the last few years, and they've got a really amazing oil management system. He and I dig into the world of. Oil and why oil is so critical to delivering the best guest experience, how technology plays a part in it, how you can continue to buy great products to deliver the guest experience. Um, if you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I'm the Chief Revenue Officer for CBS North Star. We sell the North Star point of sale solution to multi-units. Check us out@cbsnorthstar.com and now onto our show.

Jeremy Julian: 0:59

Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. As I say, each and every time. I know you guys have got lots of choices, so thanks for hanging out. today we are joined. Same company's been on, I think this is their third, maybe fourth show. But I've got somebody coming from a different angle. And so, and longtime listeners will have heard RTI or Restaurant Technologies Incorporated, as advertisers as well on the show'cause I've got a good, uh, relationship with one of Ron's business partners on, uh, the inside on the marketing side. But Ron, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit, kind of what do you get to do at, restaurant technologies and we always tease every time I have a guest on. Restaurant technology guys has the restaurant technologies incorporated people on and people are like, who the hell is who? uh, but tell people a little bit about who you are and then we can talk, about kind of the path going down.

Ron Cardwell: 1:44

Sure thing. Thank you very much. So my name's Ron Cardwell. I'm the director of Commodity Strategy for Restaurant Technologies. What does that mean? That just means I look over everything oil related with the company. So we do two things with our company. We supply fresh cooking oil to restaurants, but we also take away that used cooking oil. So I just look over the risk strategies of both of our used cooking oil and how it makes it to the renewable fuel sector, and then also helping do some advising on the fresh oil side. My history, I spent 22 years with one of the large agribusiness companies all of that time in the oil sector. So it was all dealing with all the food companies we know, plus restaurants and all those things, as well as working in the biofuel space. So I try to help a little bit with our sales group and informational group, uh, or information for our sales group rather. About oil quality, oil uses, things like that, just from my background of working in the food side as well. But I'm the resident oil nerd, I guess you can say, and I'm, uh, one of those weird people who really love talking about it. So, um, it's always real pleasure for me to get to talk about that sort of thing with anybody who wants to listen to it.

Jeremy Julian: 2:47

I think I need to get you business cards that say oil nerd instead of director of commodity strategy for oil,

Ron Cardwell: 2:53

it'd be better. Um, you know, I'm not the most popular guy at the cocktail party, so these podcasts are what I live for. Right. Just lemme.

Jeremy Julian: 3:00

I love it. Um, real quick before we jump into the state of the oil industry, I know that you guys publish a study every year, and I'd love to just remind our listeners that might have missed kind of where you guys are at. You know, you talk about recycling a lot of what you guys do, and one of the things that makes me proud to have you guys on the show as often as I do, is, is not only are you guys trying to do what's best for. you know, the end user to get the right product into restaurants so that they can get good product, but you guys also try and take care of the environment. So I'd love to talk, have you talked just a little bit before we jump into kind of the majority of our topics for today on how and why is that such an important premise for your guys'

Ron Cardwell: 3:36

Yeah. Well thank you for letting me speak about that.'cause it's one of my most, my favorite things about our company is we really close this circle of sustainability. We really do. Um, so a as many know that we deliver that fresh oil to the restaurants and we take away UCO or used cooking oil from the restaurants. And we do that as a service, but also to help provide value to the restaurants that we're, we're servicing, right? So we take that used cooking while we sell it. To the renewable diesel manufacturer. So they take all that used frying oil and they make diesel fuel out of it, right? And it goes, it feeds right into the diesel pool of all these service stations that you see up and down the highways, right? They're all blended with biodiesel or renewable diesel. So we make sure we get every drop of that used cooking oil to that renewable fuel manufacturer. And last year, I don't know the exact number, just shy of 400 million pounds. Of used cooking oil we put into the renewable fuel sector, and we'll continue to grow every year with it. Um, what's great about us is we only take back used cooking oil that we supplied the original, fresh oil for, right? So we have full traceability. So everybody has real confidence in the sustainability of what we are providing. no, uh, no fake oil, no, virgin oil, making it into the stream or anything like that. So we're very proud of that and something that. we work really hard to make sure we can maintain what does that mean for the restaurants? We get the best value for that UCO too, and we help pass that on to our customers. It's core to what we do. It's not just us keeping all the money. Right. we share it with everyone across the board. So the more value we get for it, the more that goes back to those restaurants.

Jeremy Julian: 5:10

No, and I, and uh, part of what I said is I'm proud to partner with you guys'cause I just love that you guys have that sustainability effort. and really, yeah, at least from what I understand, the alternative is throwing it away or, or storing it in the storing can get behind the, I mean, there's so many bad alternatives for the world that not only are bad financially, but just bad o overall. Is

Ron Cardwell: 5:30

That's very fair to say. Um, I mean, you have a lot of companies who try to, collect that stuff from the nasty dumpsters in the back of the stores and you don't know what gets in there. But worse than that is the, whatever volume is in those open container dumpsters back there, not all of it is actually gonna be used because it's gets. it kind of gets dirty and it gets things inside that just has to be thrown away whether they're trying to recycle it or not. So a hundred percent of what we take in will make it to that renewable fuels production. So it's sustainable and reliable for sure.

Jeremy Julian: 6:01

Love that. Um, so Ron, talk to me a little bit about cooking oil. as an amateur cook myself, I do have a couple of different kinds, but they're, you know, it's not at the levels anywhere close to what restaurants are. And I know that even in my own world, and I tell this story when people will listen to me, where we had a customer that was having a problem with their, not, wasn't a problem with their cooking oil. Their cooking oil was great. The type of cooking oil was causing some issues in their kitchen, and so they had to evaluate is peanut oil or canola oil, whatever it was that they were cooking with. It was changing the molecular, uh, complexion of, of things that were going on. And so I, I don't realize it because I'm just a dumb consumer and I. You know, I'm a home cook and it's like, you know, you've got a little bit of olive oil, you got a little bit of canola oil, you got a little bit avocado, avocado oil, but there's so many different kinds out there. So from a pure restaurant perspective, talk to me a little bit about where is the gamut and how much of that are you guys selling? What does it all

Ron Cardwell: 6:53

Sure. Well, I, it's easy for you to have that confusion. I think most of us that cook at home. You know, we just use a little bit of oil in our cooking. Maybe some sauteing, very few of us actually deep fry at home, right? So we don't do it. But deep frying is really harsh on your oil and it really breaks things down. So when you go to a commercial kitchen, I think we overlook how important that oil is to getting good quality food out.'cause we don't really do it at home, right? So what you have in the US is, you've got, most of the oil used in restaurants is soybean oil. That's just. It's a function of supply and price, right? It's predominantly by two thirds the most popular oil. Next. Below that, you have canola oil, and then you'll have, corn oil, and then there's all kinds of blends of other oil in there. Now these are, cotton seed oil or peanut oil, as you mentioned, or things like that. There's three factors in those oils that makes a restaurant decide what to do, and that's the flavor of the oil. It's the performance of the oil, and it's the price of the oil. And every restaurant has a combination of those three factors to figure out what works best for them. So it's gonna be very different for every restaurant, what they get and what they do. But what isn't different is how they handle that oil and how it performs in their food and in their kitchen to become safe and just make good food.

Jeremy Julian: 8:14

Yeah, no, and I, and I think everybody kind of gets the taste, you know, the, the flavor profile. But even in that, Ron, I'd love for you to talk a little bit, because if I'm frying, fish, I'm frying fish in an oil versus frying chicken. Versus frying french fries in that same oil, you're going to have different flavor profiles that are gonna come through. And so flavor is obviously, you know, you put it at number one and it is a critical piece, but I think even as people are considering LTOs and considering new products out to market, they need to identify how am I gonna cook this on a consistent basis to ensure that the product I already have in house is gonna fulfill

Ron Cardwell: 8:47

Yeah. And it's, it's the primary concern of the chef or whoever's making the menu in the restaurant is, how is my food gonna taste when it comes out? So some oils, your soybean oil and canola oil, for instance, the reason they're the most popular, I, I mentioned they're most, most in supply or they, their price competitiveness, but they provide a neutral flavor. To food. Okay? So most of the time, unless the oil is bad, but in fresh oil, most of the time you're gonna come out with food that tastes like the food, like it tastes your fish is gonna taste like the fish, or your fries are gonna taste like the fries. And that's because the oil provides a neutral flavor. But there are oils that impart flavor to it, right? So peanut oil, the reason it's so popular with some restaurants and some consumers. Is it?'cause it adds a flavor to the food, right? And that's the same, same can be said for corn oil or a few other oils, beef tallow, those things impart a flavor to the food. Is that good or bad? Ask the chef. That's what matters is, is, is that flavor what you're going for? Is it adding to your food or is it something that you wanna stay away from? And so that's kind of the first flavor question to ask is, do you wanna taste just the food or do you wanna add flavor to the food? Through the oil.

Jeremy Julian: 10:00

Yeah. Well, and I think, uh, across the board, I also think, you know, we'll talk about performance here in a second and then we'll get to price,'cause those were your, your second and third pillars. But even from a longevity perspective, peanut oil is great if you guys maintain it well, and I know that's part of what you guys do. And I think across the board, all of the oils that you talk about. The chef is going to taste it when the oil's brand new, fresh, the fryer's, brand new and fresh, they're gonna test it in the test kitchen, not after 50,000 batches of, chicken tenders have fried in that. So I think that also is a key component to ensure not only that you've got the right product in there, but that it stands up over

Ron Cardwell: 10:37

that's right. You know, one of the things I, I, I probably get the most flack for when we talk about these oils things is one of my answers is always, it depends, right? Because a lot of people ask me, what's the best for this? Or how do you do this? And I always say, it depends. One thing that does not depend on anything is how you handle your oil. That is a constant. You always wanna make sure it is filtered and you always wanna make sure it's at the right temperature and you wanna make sure it's changed at the right time. It doesn't matter what oil you're using. Those three things have to matter. So why do they matter? Alright, let's talk about filtering for a second. When you put food in oil, if. Anything falls off that food, whether it's bat thick, battered, or crumbs from the food or anything like that, it falls into that oil well, when you pull the food out, all those crumbs are still in there and they're still in there frying away. And as they fry away, they create volatile compounds in that oil that make it degrade faster and faster. And it's kind of, um, it's kind of an exponential de degradation, right? It's not just straight line. It kind of goes, really curves up is the longer it's in there, the faster that oil degrades. So you wanna take out those crumbs and those filter those particles out of the oil to stop the degradation, right? So that's the first thing. The second thing is gonna be making sure it's at the right temperature. If your oil is at 425 degrees, which is way hot, that heat. Allows oxygen to get into the oil and oxygen is what breaks it down and gets bad flavor. So again, it's going to degrade faster and faster. Now there's some, obviously some space for the temperature and that's gonna be up to the chef and the food you're frying. But you wanna make sure you have it at the right temperature all the time and you turn it off when you're not using it, so you're not heating it unnecessarily. Right. So those are things that will degrade the oil for sure. Lastly, if the oil starts getting all flavors or you get smoke in it, or you have just bad tasting food, if you taste it and it tastes bad, it's too late. It's gone. It's gone out the, it's already gone out the kitchen door. So you need to watch it consistently to say, all right, is it time to change it? And don't second guess yourself, change it, right? But you want to change it as often if you filter it properly, and if you keep the right temperature on there. So those are the things that really. Really break down an oil no matter which one you use, right?

Jeremy Julian: 12:57

Well, and the funny part is, is uh, uh, you know, I joke about being an amateur chef. You know, like a lot of people at COVID, I found the recipe for the Disney, um, churros and decided to fry some churros at home. You know, if anybody remembers those from 2020, I was like, dude, I gotta try these churros at home. They were fantastic, but the oil was ranted by the end of the by, because I have four kids and everybody wanted them, and then they kept. I'm like, dude, I can't keep frying these things.'cause to your point, stuff falls on the bottom of'em and, and you know, it just, it ends up, uh, that ends up being something. And I think all too few people, if they don't have a good oil management system, which I, again, I know that that's what you guys do, end up knowing that this is. you gotta change it this often and you gotta filter it this way. So, and I, again, even on that, I think you guys even have a realtime filtering process that's not just, lemme scoop the bot, you know, scoop the little bits out of the bottom of that. And so I'll let you sell a little bit on your guys' realtime filtering tool that you guys do sell to, to

Ron Cardwell: 13:48

Yeah, we call the total oil management system, so it's not just about delivering oil. when you need it and taking away the used cooking oil, it, it's really about how you handle that oil while it's in the fryer. We want you to use that oil as long as you can and turn out the best food you can. So we have a filtering process and we, we actually teach the restaurant staff when we do an installation. We tell them how to use that filtering process, how often to filter and what to watch for. Um, but yeah, it, it is, it's built in and you just. you put it through a screen and you filter it properly. Can reuse that oil a couple of times depending on, on what you're doing. But we educate definitely the restaurant staff on how to do that. It just lengthens the time that you can use that oil.

Jeremy Julian: 14:27

Which I think goes back to, talk to me a little bit about performance. You talked about that being kind of a second pillar when you're, you're doing, what does that even mean? and again, I think, you know, there's, there's the quality of it. And again, going back to my home cook days, like, oh, I go buy the more expensive one. In theory, I would hope that it's gonna taste better and it's gonna last longer, but maybe not. I, I'd love to, to have you speak to kind of what does even performance

Ron Cardwell: 14:47

I think performances might be the, might be the, the one quality that's asked about most when we talk to our, our restaurants. it's really how long does that oil hold up? In other words, how many, how often am I have to change it because that leads to higher cost, right? If you are using more oil than you have to, it's more expensive. It doesn't matter what. Per unit cost is, so performance is gonna come by. Here's where he gets to me. It depends on what you're cooking, right? So you can have a, a fryer that's gonna cook french fries, non battered, normal french fries. You can have another fryer with the same oil, the same temperature that's cooking breaded chicken, right? And those two oils will break down. At different rates and it really has to do with what you're cooking in there. Moisture content, things like batter, as I mentioned, those sort of things. So you want an oil that's going to perform for what you are going to be cooking in. Now, some restaurants have a wide variety of things that go in, in the fryers. Some separate the fryers based upon what's going in, right, um, for different reasons. But you want to know what is going in that fryer and what kind of performance can you expect to get out of the oil in there. so that's the number, that's the reason performance matters. So now what, what leads to better performance? It has to do with the stability of the oil. And when I say stability, I mean, how does it hold up under those hot conditions of a fryer? Things like soybean oil and canola oil are great. All purpose oils, they really are, but they don't hold up against something like a solid fat tallow, right? The thing that's a big solid block that goes in there. So why don't they hold up as well? Well, soybean and canola have a lot of unsaturated fats and unsaturated fats. If I don't want to get into a, um, a food chemistry course here, but essentially they have no double bonds in their molecular structure. And without those double bonds, they break away and they become free fatty acids. It just happens a lot faster when you have unsaturated fats. Versus a saturated fat, like, like tallow or something else that has high saturates. Those take a lot longer. They're full of saturates, so they take a lot longer to break down, so they'll last longer in a fryer. But that doesn't mean it's better, it just means it's going to last longer under certain circumstances. So there's a whole range in between there. peanut oil is, has higher saturated fats, corn.

Jeremy Julian: 17:07

your, your price for performance. I am guessing there, which kind of goes into your third pillar, which is depending upon, both the flavor profile, which is kind of where you started the performance of the oil, and then price. Because beef Tao's amazing if you're, there's a local barbecue place. I live in Texas. There's a local barbecue place that's just moved away from all of the, all of the regular oils, you know, all of the seed oils to cook with. And they went with beef tallow. They cook a lot of brisket, but at the same time, I know in talking to the owner, it's more expensive to put that oil in. It might last longer and for the four items that he fries every day, probably not a big deal for him, for his single unit. But when I'm getting into a raising canes where they got 800 stores, all fried chicken, it's almost impossible to get to that level. Is that kind of what

Ron Cardwell: 17:50

Yeah, that's for sure what we're seeing. I think, I think when you go into that price side, I think we all know the, the whole economic, formula of supply and demand, right? Um, though it's soybean oil, canola oil, they're in greater supply, so their price is much lower. When you get to something like towel, you set it right on. It is a beautiful oil to fry some things with, if you're going for a barbecue place doing small batch fry. Great because it fits into the mold. They're not using much more, so that higher price may not impact em much, but when you get high volume fryers, you have to really say, okay, do we like this flavor so much? We're willing to incur the price or not?

Jeremy Julian: 18:26

Or the Michelin star restaurants that are doing duck fat

Ron Cardwell: 18:29

You got it.

Jeremy Julian: 18:29

at a place in Atlanta recently and I'm like, they got these freaking tater tots, but I got four tater tots fried and duck fat, and I paid, you know,$32 for four tater tots. I'm like, they're charging

Ron Cardwell: 18:38

I like it. Don't get me wrong. The, the beautiful duck fat fries are awesome, but is it practical for your restaurant at, at all? And that's really, that's really the part we're taking forward. So that's that solid fat or that more saturated fat, it does come at a higher price, but that's not the only thing that's really contributing to that price. Right? You have to look at where does that, where do these fats come from? Where do these oils come from? tallow in particular is once a hot topic. Right now. Everyone's really looking at, Hey, use tallow instead of seed oils. Right? And, and I won't get into the political debate about it because it's out there, but here's the reality. tallow comes from, from cattle, it comes from cattles, right? It's rendered to be fed, if you want to think of it that way. One thing that is absolutely certain is beef are not raised or slaughtered. For the fat, right? So they're only going to be slaughtered for the meat and the fat that's left over that goes into tallow. So there's a just a finite amount of beef tallow in the world that can be used. And in the US in particular, even when you look at what we import it, it really is like a 10th of the volume of soybean oil that's out there, right? So you have to get to this practical side of. Could a large scale restaurants, could they switch over, to alo? Probably if they worked really hard and were the first ones to get to it. but the price is gonna

Jeremy Julian: 19:58

But the supply and demand is gonna some problems, and they're

Ron Cardwell: 20:01

it sure is. And it's important to also realize there's, I mentioned there's a finite supply. It is not uncommon for a specialty fat like Tao to not be available because you just, it, the supplies have run out for now and you're gonna be a week or three weeks out from getting resupplied. Those sort of things do happen. So, we see it in the, we see it in the peanut oil side as wells not just relegated to, to beef fat. There are one or two really large buyers of peanut oil in the us. They get it first.

Jeremy Julian: 20:29

I'm assuming five guys is on that

Ron Cardwell: 20:31

that's one of the two.

Jeremy Julian: 20:33

I'm saying, I'm like, oh yeah.'cause every time I'm, I don't have anybody that has peanut allergies, but when you walk in it's like, dude, you got peanuts here. If you have got peanut allergies, get the heck out.

Ron Cardwell: 20:40

no, no doubt. And there's another really good chicken place that does it as well too, right? So these, these large places, they get, they really get first dibs from the peanut oil suppliers. After that, it, good luck. You may not get peanut oil right, because peanut oil has a finite amount of supply. So there's all these, these realms within these cooking oils that make the price really. Either expensive or volatile. And it could be supply, it could be could be decent supply and still be very expensive. But those are all those decisions that have to go into making. What do you want to use for your restaurant? Because probably the most important thing is consistency for your restaurant, right?

Jeremy Julian: 21:19

Especially as you get to

Ron Cardwell: 21:20

You bet. You

Jeremy Julian: 21:21

and you, you know, you, again, going to Beef Tao is great if you're small batch, you know, you're this barbecue place. But as you get to macro level number one and number two is, it's inconsistent because it's a organic, I mean, it's a, it's a cow. You have no idea what the, what the cattle ate to be able to get that. Whereas in, in soybean and some of those kind of things, it's a little bit

Ron Cardwell: 21:40

yeah, there's there's definitely truth to that. I think the tallow industry's really good at homogenizing those and, and pro and getting'em processed into the, into a uniform product. But what you don't know is the consistency of supply is it really can run out and you don't wanna have to switch to a different oil. Because you know it's not available and you certainly don't want to just not offer food,

Jeremy Julian: 22:00

Yeah, well, and, and, and obviously you can't, you know, go market all, Hey, I'm doing all beef tallow, and then three weeks from now

Ron Cardwell: 22:05

you got it. You got it. You got it. Yeah.

Jeremy Julian: 22:07

you know,

Ron Cardwell: 22:07

That absolutely will.

Jeremy Julian: 22:08

Ron, I'm gonna flip, uh, the script a little bit. Let's talk about what are some ways that you guys help educate your users of the product to be able to. Not only, I mean, we talked a lot about kinda the filtering and you guys helping with that, but what are some other ways that you see that restaurants out there that are listening can maximize their oil spend in ways that, that maybe they hadn't thought about? You know, you talked about filtering, you talked about, you know, you kind of threw in a single line about potentially not having the fryers turned on when, when they're not in use. But I'd love to have you kind of talk through some tips and tricks that you've seen people do to get the most, the best quality. The longest lifespan out of the product that they're

Ron Cardwell: 22:47

Yeah, I think there, I think one thing that's really overlooked a lot and. And it's, I just think it's in general, oil in general can be overlooked a lot by a lot of restaurants. I think. there's several, um, suppliers out there, food service suppliers who use oil as kind of their loss leader, if you will. they'll, they'll sell you the cheapest oil they have because they really want you to buy their, their garlic and their spices and things that have really high margin on'em. Right. So it's easy for the restaurant to think. It's not an important thing. I use a lot of it. I just need the cheapest thing out there. That's one thing that you can fall into now. I say that price matters on performance, but you could still get a readily available oil and plenty supply that is not that much more expensive than the cheap oil, and it'll end up lasting you longer. Excuse me. It'll end up lasting you longer. So don't overlook the fact that an oil may be slightly more expensive and can be drastically better. As far as performance. It's easy to fall into the, Hey, it's just oil. Let's just buy the cheapest thing there is and get in there right now. At Restaurant Technologies, we are 100% oil agnostic. If you, if you have an oil you wanna use, we'll try to get it to you. We want to just make sure you are using the right thing for you that saves you money, right? so we don't, we don't really care the oil except that it's right for the restaurant because we want you to have good performance and stay in business. so overlooking things like just the cheap oil supply ready, oil supply, those things. Are there when you get into performance, it's don't take for granted the person who is in charge of that oil, who's in charge of those friars. we all know it. It's large quick service restaurants. You have young kids, 16, 17 years old, they're not managing that oil properly, probably. Um, and you're leaving that. Performance of your food into the hands of someone who, a, is just, just not trained properly or inexperienced or just young or just doesn't care. So I say the, the restaurant, the kitchen manager really needs to take hold of the oil that's going in there. The only way you're gonna make it to where you never think about oil is if you think about it first, put the right processes in place and say, okay, as long as these are in place, we never have to worry about it. And that's when you'll get it. Otherwise, you'll overlook the quality so quickly. So I, I just can't state enough how much we have brilliant salespeople and really good support that we really try to work with these kitchens and so they don't have to think about this in the future. And probably the number one thing is let's make sure you do it right up front and then, and train your people to look at it. Then you'll never have to do it again. We can always talk about different oils. We can always get the one you want. But as I said in the beginning, whichever one you're want, you're using, treat it properly. Handle it properly, and it will last you longer and

Jeremy Julian: 25:30

Well, and what's, what's the end result of buying cheap? I mean,'cause at the end of the day, you talked about it, it turning faster and ultimately that impacts the guest experience. It impacts the

Ron Cardwell: 25:39

Yeah, I think, I think the easy one is you're gonna go through the oil faster, which obviously costs more. I think the one that's hard to put a cost on is those customers. Who get bad food from it? Are they ever gonna come back? Are they gonna look at your, your, maybe the first time in the, in the restaurant and they're thinking all your food tastes that way. And one of the worst ones is when all the food tastes the same. And you mentioned, you know, you mentioned the, the, in the beginning cooking fries and fish and all the things. When that oil goes back, it's like everything tastes the same. So there's, it's hard to say what the cost of that is, but it is a cost. It's definitely,

Jeremy Julian: 26:12

can promise you, I, I text Dave when I have this problem, when I'm at a restaurant that I know you guys service, I'll text him and be like, dude, you gotta get on these guys.'cause uh, they have not changed their oil.'cause it's, it's rough. It's rough. And you, and as a consumer, now that I'm familiar with what you guys do, I just. I had no idea that there was such a, not just an industry around it, but really a, a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. And I know even for myself, when I worked in restaurants as a kid, I was one of those 16, 17-year-old kids. Nobody told me about all of this. And we were still in the days back, back then I got a little bit of gray hair. So it's been a while. They didn't have all of these automated filtering systems, so we had big. Blue buckets out back with the, uh, the used oil that, that some truck would show up every couple of weeks and pick it up. So, no, very familiar with, kind of the, the changing of it. But nobody ever told me, this is what you're supposed to

Ron Cardwell: 26:57

right. And you know, one of the, one, one of the items I'd, I'd be remiss to not address is just sheer safety. Now, the one low, the one. spot in the kitchen that creates the most injuries is the changing of the oil. In a fryer, you either get spills and burns or slips and falls. It's the most dangerous job in the restaurant. And I will say that what we provide is we provide assurance that nobody has to touch it. You're not gonna get anybody burning themselves. You're not gonna get anybody slipping and falling. And that sort of savings actually shows in insurance rates for restaurants. We've worked closely with insurance companies where your actual insurance prices can go down because we've eliminated the safety hazard. But forget about the insurance. You, you have somebody who's gonna go home. Safe tonight, and they're not gonna be missing work. Their family won't be worried about getting better. That is one thing you, again, can't put a dollar value on, at least in the terms of someone's safety. And so that, that for sure is important to look at. if you don't use a restaurant technology system, great, fine. I understand. But give your people proper training on how to handle that oil. Give them something so where they can safely transport it to wherever it is because, slip and falls and burns are so dangerous. it, it really does matter.

Jeremy Julian: 28:11

Yeah. No, it's a, it's a huge deal. And I know, um, uh, when your legal counsel was on her and I talked quite a bit about what that looks like. And, you know, it's, it's scary. It's scary if you don't do it properly. kind of continuing down that path. Now you, yes, we'd love for them to look at restaurant technologies Incorporated, but what are some things that, if you were sitting there and you're now a restaurant owner and you're like, Hey, I haven't looked at this. You've opened my eyes, and now I need to go look at, at what are some things that they need to consider when they're looking at an oil supplier and the ways that they can make their oil. delivery and removal, you guys have competitors out there. There's obviously, you guys don't own the entire industry. You guys own a lot, lot of it. But what are some things that they should be looking at as they're going out to find suppliers for this product to ensure that they get the best product to their guests and have the best, monetary return on

Ron Cardwell: 29:00

Yeah, I think if you're going to looking for just any general oil supplier, you wanna make sure that, how often are they gonna be able to deliver to you? Right. Because we've mentioned before, you don't wanna run out. there's lots of parts of the country where there's a lot of seasonality to the restaurant business, right? And you don't really know when it's gonna pick up sometimes. So you wanna make sure whoever you're getting the supply from. If you call'em today, can they get you the oil tomorrow because you're, instead of two days from now, because now you sudden you've got a weekend rush that you weren't expecting or the weather came out way clearer at the lake this week than we ever expected. So we're running low. So make sure you have that good sustainability of supply line coming into you of the oil you want, not just any oil they can get you. Right. So I would really pay attention to that. I'd talk to that supplier about pricing. They may be cheap right now, but are they gonna be cheap? Are they gonna be having consistent pricing structure, you know, six months, a year down the line? Are they just trying to get low prices to get you in the door? are they doing this as a, as I mentioned before, as a loss leader, you wanna,

Jeremy Julian: 29:57

Yeah. Is it a broadliner that's not, that doesn't specialize in oil and they just throw it on the back of the truck and it's coming along with your lettuce and tomatoes and pickles

Ron Cardwell: 30:05

that's right. And to where if you were to change the supplier of those other things, is it gonna supply, gonna affect your oil supply? I always like to save somebody's. Giving you oil less than market value means they're charging more than market value on something else. Right? Right. So, so, but, but make sure that supply line is really well open on the backside, the used cooking oil side, don't overlook it. I think it's a nasty thing in the back of the restaurant for these dumpsters where you're putting things in and sometimes you just forget about it. And you hope that somebody's coming by to pick it up because. I don't know. I don't really pay attention to it. Most of'em will say, and you don't wanna be at the point where you have to call'em to come get it. but secondarily, there's value in that used cooking on the back of the restaurant. And we all, we've all heard the stories of, the, the cooking oil pirates that come through and, and essentially suck out that, that used cooking oil so they can sell it some. Let's, that's revenue at the bottom line for the restaurant owner too. So talk to your uco, provi or supplier, not supplier, your UCO pickup service, and make sure they can secure that for you. Find out how often they'll come by if you have to call them. Which leads me in probably to one other thing is, are you okay with, handling the ordering and the disposal? Is it in your bandwidth to go ahead and do that?'cause you're gonna have to pay attention to it on a regular basis. another restaurant technology. Shameless plug, you'll never have to pay attention to it for us. We set it up and you'll never have to worry about ordering again. But if it, if it isn't us, make sure you don't forget about those things.'cause as I mentioned, sometimes we just don't pay attention to the fryer side and it becomes a last minute thing. so just keep it in your bandwidth.

Jeremy Julian: 31:38

Well, and I think everybody gets all excited about it when they're opening a restaurant, but they don't look at the maintenance of that long term. And then, and then they, you know, bite'em in the butt.'cause it's 30 days from now they got a problem and they gotta figure out how to solve it. So setting it up right in the beginning is a huge piece

Ron Cardwell: 31:51

I think it falls.

Jeremy Julian: 31:51

to really making your life. You didn't open a restaurant to go

Ron Cardwell: 31:54

No, no, no,

Jeremy Julian: 31:55

You opened up a restaurant to serve food and to take care of people and, and all of

Ron Cardwell: 31:58

and I think it falls. It falls a lot. A lot of times we see it falling in line with, um, cleaning procedures. Right. Sometimes cleaning procedures fall to the wayside. Well. Part of cleaning procedures is cleaning out that fryer and that fry, all those things we talked about in filtering. When you get that stuff in the fryer, you gotta remember to do it. Don't do it just when it's time to clean the kitchen.

Jeremy Julian: 32:17

Yeah. Well, and, and we've had a previous guest on, and again, I was teasing about, you know, calling one of your colleagues about, uh, about somebody you get service oil for. But at the end of the day, we had a previous guest on that did that, talked about, guest feedback and, you know, you'll get the guest feedback into your comment earlier. They may never come back. This may be their first time there, they may never come back. And so the fact that, uh, that's an opportunity out there is, is huge. So, Ron, how do people get connected? How do people, you know. You've given us kind of a, a blueprint thisis, what you should be looking for. Where do they go? How do they learn more? I know, again, long time listeners are probably like, dude, I'm tired of hearing you talk about Restaurant Technologies Incorporated, but honestly, I really am passionate about making sure that restaurants are successful. And so knowing where these products are out there, because again, nothing wrong with Cisco, nothing wrong with US Foods. They're gonna sell you oil if you, if you let them. They do a great job with, with some of the things that they do. It's not something they specialize in. All you guys do is managing kitchens and kitchen oil and such. So how do people learn more? How do people engage with your sales

Ron Cardwell: 33:14

I think the best way is to get on our website, rti i c.com. You'll see all of our, our region, we have 41 depots around the country. So there, I promise you anybody who's watching that, this is not out of reach of a depot that can service you. Right? We're everywhere. And that website will connect you with our sales team and we'll get each of the right people. And from there they'll connect you to whoever you need to talk to. I think it's important to realize that I'll say it again. We can get you any oil that you need, right? I mean, what you're getting from the bigger US Feed Food Services or Ciscos or places like that, we get oil from the same places, right? It's just not gonna come to you in a jug in a box. It's gonna come to you in a bulk form. So we can do all that, but just go to our website, you'll see where we're located. get a rundown. And as always, I like to make myself available to every customer who wants to call and talk oil because.

Jeremy Julian: 34:01

Yeah.'cause you're an oil nerd. You know it's going on, it's going on Your new business card coming out next, uh, next quarter. So well, Ron, I, I genuinely, I mean, I, and I say this every time, I get to learn new things and for me it's always awesome to sit here on this side of the mic and just kind of get to pick people's brains that this is what they do. I talk restaurant tech all day long and how you can automate the front of the house and the back of the house, but I love listening to people that are really solving restaurant challenges. So thank you for sharing your expertise. Thank, thank you for continuing to, uh, invest in this space because, uh, I know a lot of restaurants and a lot of consumers at the end of the day benefit because

Ron Cardwell: 34:34

Well, thank you very much for having me on. It was a lot of fun.

Jeremy Julian: 34:37

Awesome. And to our listeners guys, uh, like I said, uh, I know you guys have got lots of choices. If you haven't already done so, please subscribe using your favorite player and make it a great day.

34:47

Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Visit restaurant technology guys.com for tips, industry insights, and more to help you run your restaurant better.